Subantarctic islands are regions without permanent inhabitants and were nature is not exploited. The values of biodiversity is thus not directly linked to its utility for humans or the ecological services provided. The aim of this research was to detail the non-utilitarian intrinsic values of biodiversity, and to investigate their articulation with other values in relation to different social factors. In most situations, such identifications are made difficult by the fact that utilitarian values are predominant and closely intertwined with other types of values. Insofar as values depend both on individuals and on their situations, this analysis can be done in situations where non-utilitarian values do not risk being overshadowed by utilitarian values. This is the case of the subantarctic islands. Furthermore, these islands mobilise a small but diverse number of actors: between scientists, military, logistics personnel, volunteers and the staff of the reserve, the social actors have widely diverse trajectories, affiliations and socializations.

We made surveys in 2016 and 2017 on the Marion Dufresne and at Kerguelen, consisting in series of semi-directive interview realized with all the types of people present. The interviews were analyzed with by the qualitative method of thematic analysis of content and a multivariate quantitative statistics. The particular context of the Kerguelen and the diversity of the people surveyed made it possible to identify a large number of values, mostly non-utilitarian and non-economic, and to begin to analyze how they relate to one another. We defined a dozen categories of values (authenticity, singularity, responsibility, scientific, aesthetic, memorial, affective, existence, spiritual ...), and related them to the different attributes of nature, and different situations. We also analyzed which ones are shared or divisive, and linked these values and their emergence context with the context of socialization to nature.