IPBES core glossary
The IPBES core glossary provides a standard definition for important terms of broad applicability to IPBES outputs. This core glossary does not replace the assessment-specific glossaries, but is complementary to them. It was developed by a glossary committee established for this purpose.
biomass_2 | The mass of non-fossilized and biodegradable organic material originating from plants, animals and micro-organisms in a given area or volume. |
biome_1 | Global-scale zones, generally defined by the type of plant life that they support in response to average rainfall and temperature patterns. For example, tundra, coral reefs or savannahs. |
biome_3 | Biomes are global-scale zones, generally defined by the type of plant life that they support in response to average rainfall and temperature patterns. For example, tundra, coral reefs or savannas. |
biophysical system | An assemblage of interacting biological and physical processes. |
biophysical value | Measures of the importance of components of nature (living being or non-living element), of the processes that are derived from the interactions among these components, or of particular properties of those components and processes. |
bioprospecting_1 | The process of searching for and subsequently developing new drugs based on biological resources. |
bioremediation | The use of microorganisms to clean up polluted soil and water. |
biosecurity | Strategy, efforts and planning to protect human, animal and environmental health against biological threats. |
biosphere | The sum of all the ecosystems of the world. It is both the collection of organisms living on the Earth and the space that they occupy on part of the Earth's crust (the lithosphere), in the oceans (the hydrosphere) and in the atmosphere. The biosphere is all the planet's ecosystems. |
biota | All living organisms of an area; the flora and fauna considered as a unit. |
biotechnology (modern) | Modern biotechnology means the application of: In vitro nucleic acid techniques, including recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles, or Fusion of cells beyond the taxonomic family, that overcome natural physiological reproductive or recombination barriers and that are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection. |
biotechnology_1 | A method for mitigating land degradation using mechanical (structures) and biological elements. |
biotechnology_2 | Any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use. |
bioterrorism | The deliberate, private use of biological agents to harm and frighten the people of a state or society, is related to the military use of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. |
biotic homogenization | See homogenization. |
black carbon | Black carbon is a carbonaceous aerosol. It is produced both naturally and by human activities as a result of the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels, and biomass. Primary sources include emissions from diesel engines, cook stoves, wood burning and forest fires. Black carbon particles strongly absorb sunlight and give soot its black color. Thus, black carbon has emerged as a major contributor to global climate change, possibly second only to CO2 as the main driver of change. |
blue carbon | The carbon stored in marine and coastal ecosystems. |
bog | An entirely rainfed wetland area that typically accumulates peat. |
bonn challenge | A global effort to restore 150 million hectares of the world’s degraded and deforested lands by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. It is overseen by the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature as its Secretariat. |
bottom-up | Systems driven by basic or lower- order processes. |
bottom-up control of the food web | A mode of control of trophic interactions by resources, in which organisms on each trophic level are food limited, as opposed to a top-down control (by predators), in which organisms at the top of food chains are food limited, and at successive lower levels, they are alternately predator, then food limited. |
boundary objects | Objects and/or processes plastic enough to adapt to local needs and to the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. Their meanings may differ in different social contexts, but their structure is common enough and recognizable across contexts. |
brackish water_1 | Inland water with a high salt concentration. |
brackish water_2 | Water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. Technically, brackish water contains between 0.5 and 30 grams of salt per litre—more often expressed as 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand (‰), which is a specific gravity of between 1.005 and 1.010. Thus, brackish covers a range of salinity regimes and is not considered a precisely defined condition. |
breadth | refers to change across multiple spheres, with emerging consensus that transformation requires co-evolutionary change across different spheres of society, including personal, economic, political, institutional and technological ones. |
broad values | They refer to life goals, general guiding principles and orientations towards the world that are informed by people’s beliefs and worldviews. Broad values include moral principles, such as justice, belonging, freedom, but also life goals, like enjoyment, health, prosperity. Broad values influence specific values and provide them with a general context and meaning. |
buen vivir_1 | Although no universal definition of buen vivir has been attained yet, it has four common constitutive elements: (a) the idea of harmony with nature (including its abiotic components); (b) vindication of the principles and values of marginalized/subordinated peoples; (c) the State as guarantor of the satisfaction of basic needs (such as education, health, food and water), social justice and equality; and (d) democracy. There are also two cross-cutting lines: buen vivir as a critical paradigm of Eurocentric (anthropocentric, capitalist, economistic and universalistic) modernity, and as a new intercultural political project. |
buen vivir_2 | An alternative to economic development-centered approaches, generally defined as forming part of the Andean indigenous cosmology, based on the belief that true wellbeing is only possible as part of a community in a broad sense, including people, nature and the Earth, linked by mutual responsibilities and obligations, and that the wellbeing of the community is above that of the individual. |
buffer (ecology) | A natural or anthropogenic feature which separates land uses. |
buffer zones (protected areas) | Areas between core protected areas and the surrounding landscape or seascape which protect the network from potentially damaging external influences and which are essentially transitional areas. |
built environment | Comprises urban design, land use and the transportation system, and encompasses patterns of human activity within the physical environment. |
bumble bee | Members of the bee genus Bombus; they are social insects that form colonies with a single queen, or brood parasitic or cuckoo bumblebees (previously Psithyrus). Currently 262 species are known, which are found primarily in higher latitudes and at higher altitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, although they also occur in South America and New Zealand (where they were introduced). |
burden | The resulting negative impacts of ecosystem use and management on people and nature, including distant, diffuse and delayed impacts. |
bureau_1 | The IPBES Bureau is a subsidiary body established by the Plenary which carries out the governance functions of the Platform. It is made up of representatives nominated from each of the United Nations regions, and is chaired by the Chair of IPBES. |
bureau_2 | Within the context of IPBES - a subsidiary body established by the Plenary which carries out the administrative functions agreed upon by the Plenary, as articulated in the document on functions, operating principles and institutional arrangements of the Platform. |
bureau_3 | The IPBES Bureau is a subsidiary body established by the Plenary which carries out the governance functions of IPBES. It is made up of representatives nominated from each of the United Nations regions and is chaired by the Chair of IPBES. |