Glossary definitions

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.

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.

offer a means to improve environmental management outcomes by spanning the science-policy interface to allow for the effective sharing of data, information, and knowledge. Bridging organizations are institutions that use specific mechanisms such as working groups to link and facilitate interactions among individual actors in a management setting.

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.

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.

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.

A natural or anthropogenic feature which separates land uses.

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.

Comprises urban design, land use and the transportation system, and encompasses patterns of human activity within the physical environment.

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).

The resulting negative impacts of ecosystem use and management on people and nature, including distant, diffuse and delayed impacts.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An increase in density of shrubby or bushy tree vegetation in savannah or grassland systems.

Meat for human consumption derived from wild animals.

A form of subsistence hunting that entails the harvesting of wild animals for food and for non-food purposes, including for medicinal use.

Bushmeat (or wild meat) hunting is a form of hunting that entails the harvesting of wild animals for food and for non-food purposes, including for medicinal use.

Bushmeat (or wild meat) hunting is a form of subsistence hunting that entails the harvesting of wild animals for food and for non-food purposes, including for medicinal use.

See “wild meat”.

IPCC term case assumes that future developments follow those of the past and no changes in policies will take place.

The incidental capture of non-target species. The portion of a commercial fishing catch that consists of marine animals caught unintentionally.

The commercially undesirable species caught during a fishing process.

A Chinese philosophy based on the writings of Lao-tzu, advocating humility and religious piety.

adj. Ten years.

The characteristics and needs of any particular policy or decision-making process.

Approaches and techniques based on science and other knowledge systems, including indigenous and local knowledge, that can inform, assist and enhance relevant decisions, policy-making and implementation at the local, national, regional and international levels.

Variation in subjective human judgments, preferences, beliefs, world views (Section 1.6.3).

The process of making decisions can happen at the individual level or amongst groups and entails the prioritisation of certain values. This prioritization greatly influences which issues are found worthy of consideration, do and do not become part of the agenda, as well as determine which decision-makers are considered socially legitimate to participate in the process.

System for logical interpretation of evidence leading to decision options that can be objectively evaluated.

Breakdown of complex organic substances into simpler molecules or ions by physical, chemical and/or biological processes.

Decorative and aesthetic uses are defined as the uses of wild species in order to produce handicrafts and objects of adornment, beauty, and/or entertainment.

Wind erosion.

Human-induced conversion of forested land to non-forested land. Deforestation can be permanent, when this change is definitive, or temporary when this change is part of a cycle that includes natural or assisted regeneration.

Land in a state that results from persistent decline or loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services that cannot fully recover unaided.

Land in a state that results from persistent decline or loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services that cannot fully recover unaided within decadal timescales.

Started as an activist movement around 2008 and turned into an academic discipline, it starts from the premise that economic growth cannot be sustained ad infinitum on a resource constraint planet. It demands a deep societal change, denying the need for economic growth. It is unclear whether degrowth should be considered as a collectively consented choice or an environmentally-imposed inevitability.

A theoretical frame invoking the necessity of downscaling and re- localizing production.

A model describing transition in demographic profile of a population, which has been associated with the development process that transforms an agricultural society into an industrial one and characterized by a rapid population growth due to a decline in the death rate while fertility remains high initially; the growth rate then declines due to a decline in the birth rate. Before the transition's onset, population growth is low as high death rates tend to offset high fertility. After the transition, population growth is again below replacement level as both birth and death rates reach low levels.

A heterotrophic process of anaerobic microbial respiration conducted by bacteria. Denitrification is the microbial oxidation of organic matter in which nitrate or nitrite is the terminal electron acceptor, and the end product is N2.

Reduction of nitrates and nitrites to nitrogen by microorganisms.

The increase in woody plants in a savanna, grassland or woodland.

Decreased oxygen concentrations in the ocean, as a result of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors, e.g. nutrient input due to inefficient fertilizer use.

The places where eroded soils are deposited.

refers to change that goes beyond addressing the symptoms of environmental change or their proximate drivers, such as new technologies, incentive systems or protected areas, to include changes to underlying drivers, including consumption preferences, beliefs, ideologies and social inequalities.

see exploratory scenarios.

Desertification means land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. Desertification does not refer to the natural expansion of existing deserts.

Land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities.

Land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. Desertification does not refer to the natural expansion of existing deserts.