As an ecosystem-services researcher and lead author of a guide on the values of nature approved by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), I am saddened by the perceived conflict in the biodiversity community over the ‘ecosystem services’ and ‘nature’s contributions to people’ approaches to biodiversity valuation (see Nature 560, 423–425; 2018). Rather than being in competition, they are mutually reinforcing.