Glossary definitions

The total area of green leaves per unit area of ground covered (FAO, 2018a).

An environmentally damaging activity that is relocated elsewhere after being stopped locally.

Phenomena whereby the reduction in emissions (relative to a baseline) in a jurisdiction/sector associated with the implementation of mitigation policy is offset to some degree by an increase outside the jurisdiction/sector through induced changes in consumption, production, prices, land use and/or trade across the jurisdictions/sectors. Leakage can occur at a number of levels, be it a project, state, province, nation or world region.

Learning refers to the process of knowledge and skills acquisition. Studies on learning have payed attention to the different ways people acquire knowledge, practices, and beliefs (i.e. imitation, copying, trial-and-error), but also to the dynamics of kn.

Learning refers to the process of knowledge and skills acquisition. Studies on learning have payed attention to the different ways people acquire knowledge, practices, and beliefs (i.e. imitation, copying, trial-and-error), but also to the dynamics of knowledge transmission, or the different sources from which knowledge, practices, and beliefs are passed from one individual to another (i.e. from parents, peers, teachers, prestigious peoples, media, etc.). Social learning is defined as the acquisition of new information by copying others, and it is a key human strategy that allows for the accumulation of culturally transmitted knowledge.

see “Policy instruments”.

any entity that has the ability to conclude and negotiate international agreements in accordance with its external commitments; become a member of international organizations; join international conventions, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, stipulated in Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union

Legal pluralism is a sensitizing concept for situations in which people draw upon several legal systems, irrespective of their status within the state legal system.

Degree of detail captured in an analysis. A high level of resolution implies a highly detailed analysis, usually associated with finer spatial and temporal scales. A low level of resolution implies a less detailed analysis, usually associated with coarser spatial and temporal scales.

Frames that illustrate the in which people conceptualise how nature matters. Life frames mediate between ways of being/living and the prioritization of different sets of broad and specific values. The four archetypes of living from, living in, living with and living as nature are not mutually exclusive. They offer a range of sources-of-concern for nature that can overlap or be emphasized in diverse contexts (section 2.2.6).

Referred to simply as karsts are sedimentary rock outcrops that consist primarily of calcium carbonate.

Imprecise meaning of words, including vagueness and ambiguity.

Livelihood diversification is defined as the process by which rural families construct a diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities in their struggle for survival and in order to improve their standards of living”.

The capacity of all people across generations to sustain and improve their livelihood opportunities and well-being despite environmental, economic, social and political disturbances.

Adequate and sustainable access to income and resources to meet basic needs (including adequate access to food, potable water, health facilities, educational opportunities, housing, time for community participation and social integration).

Within the context of the IPBES Conceptual Framework - a perspective on good quality of life based on the interdependence that exists among human beings, other living species and elements of nature. It implies that we should live peacefully alongside all other organisms even though we may need to exploit other organisms to some degree.

adj. Referring to places, people, things or events within a short distance of an identified locality.

Local communities” refers to non-indigenous communities with historical linkages to places and livelihoods characterized by long- term relationships with the natural environment, often over generations.

A group of individuals that interact within their immediate surroundings and/or direct mutual influences in their daily life. In this sense, a rural village, a clan in transhumance or the inhabitants of an urban neighbourhood can be considered a local community, but not all the inhabitants of a district, a city quarter or even a rural town. A local community could be permanently settled or mobile.

Knowledge about nature, including organisms (animals and plants), ecosystems and ecological interactions, held by local people who interact with and use natural resources. This is a manifestation of indigenous local knowledge (ILK), but includes also knowledge held by those local people who may not be officially recognized as indigenous (in legal terms). Like traditional ecological knowledge, LEK can be seen as a knowledge-practice-belief complex. In other words, it is a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission (Berkes, 2012). This encompasses ways of knowing and doing, which are dynamic concepts relying on building on experience and adapting to changes, thereby imbibe a strong learning-by-doing component.

Local economies and subsistence economies are defined as those that are small in scale and in which the use of resources (including wild species) are limited and exclusively used to meet local needs rather than accumulated or sold for profit.

Logging is defined as the removal of whole trees or woody parts of trees from their habitat. Logging generally results in the death of the tree, but also includes cases in which it may not, such as coppicing. Logging occurs in forests that may be classified as primary, naturally regenerating, planted, and plantation. This assessment does not address logging from plantation forests except as it has bearing on the practice in the other forest types. Harvest of non-woody parts of trees ( leaves, propagules and bark) are here defined as gathering.

A social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or behavior.

A choice by people of a desired contemporary or future outcome.

A condition that maximizes the desired mix of ecosystem services.

Scenarios that start with the definition of a clear objective, or a set of objectives, specified either in terms of achievable targets, or as an objective function to be optimized, and then identify different pathways to achieving this outcome (e.g. through backcasting).

See “scenarios”.

A category applied to a group in a formal system of nomenclature, e.g. species, genus, family etc. (plural: taxa).

Variety of species or other taxonomic categories (IUCN, 2012a).

Technical papers are based on the material contained in the assessment reports and are prepared on topics deemed important by the Plenary.

A Technical Summary is a longer detailed and specialized version of the material contained in the summary for policymakers.

Tele-coupling refers to socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. It involves distant exchanges of information, energy and matter (e.g. people, goods, products, capital) at multiple spatial, temporal and organizational scales.

Transboundary acquisition of land.

Relates to the environmental interactions between climatic systems over considerable distances.

A statistical association between climate variables at widely separated, geographically-fixed spatial locations. Teleconnections are caused by large spatial structures such as basin-wide coupled modes of ocean-atmosphere variability, Rossby wave-trains, mid-latitude jets and storm tracks, etc.

Socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. It involves distant exchanges of information, energy and matter (e.g. people, goods, products, capital) at multiple spatial, temporal and organizational scales.

Refers to socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. It involves distant exchanges of information, energy and matter (e.g. people, goods, products, capital) at multiple spatial, temporal and organizational scales.

Telecoupling refers to socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. It involves distant exchanges of information, energy and matter (e.g. people, goods, products, capital) at multiple spatial, temporal and organizational scales.

Telecoupling refers to the phenomenon that natural or anthropogenic processes in one part of the globe have an effect on a distant part of the world (Friis et al., 2016). This concept thus enables the description of flows and impacts between globally distant places in a common language. Synonym in the literature is global inter-regional connectedness.

Comprised of two properties: 1) temporal extent - the total length of the time period of interest for a particular study (e.g. 10 years, 50 years, or 100 years); and 2) temporal grain (or resolution) - the temporal frequency with which data are observed or projected within this total period (e.g. at 1-year, 5-year or 10-year intervals).

Measurements or other observations reported along a time series.

The act, fact, manner, or condition of holding something in one’s possession, as real estate or an office; occupation.

An agreement between an individual or group to land and residential property, which is governed and regulated by a legal and administrative framework includes both customary and statutory systems.

Tenure systems define who can use which Nature’s contributions to people, for how long and under what conditions. Three related aspects of tenure offer a comprehensive understanding of the term. They include (1) tenure as a set of rights, (2) key responsibilities in relation to tenure, and (3) enabling conditions that facilitate governance of tenure. From this combined perspective, tenure is understood as the combination of a set of specific rights that connect the resource users with various aspects of the resource and puts the control and decision-making power in their hands. These rights span social, ecological, economic, and political aspects of tenure, and help provide directions to moving toward effective governance. Rights are connected with responsibilities that range from the duties of the users to maintain the resource to the duties to be performed by the state, and those jointly by both. The exercise of tenure rights can only be possible if certain conditions are meaningfully met because they offer the much required social, ecological, and political environment for the operationalization of tenure rights, performance of the tenure related duties, and necessary security and protection against tenure violations. From an integrated social-ecological (human-environmental) systems perspective, tenure is defined as relationships (also interactions and connections) between people (the users) who seek tenure and between the people (users) and the environment (includes the resource) to which tenure is being sought. Governance of tenure is then about the manner in which these host of relationships, interactions, and connections are addressed and promoted. Tenure in the context of sustainable use of wild species is not a static concept and, therefore, can be best understood as a process and its governance as continuous.

Any agent that causes an abnormality following fetal exposure during pregnancy.

Terrestrial animal harvesting is defined as the removal from their habitat of animals (vertebrates and invertebrates) that spend some or all of their life cycle in terrestrial environments. As for fishing, terrestrial animal harvesting often results in the death of the animal, but it may not in some cases. To reflect both situations, terrestrial animal harvesting has been sub-divided into a lethal and a “non- lethal” category. Hunting is defined as the lethal category of terrestrial animal harvesting which leads to the killing of the animal, such as in trophy hunting. “Non-lethal” terrestrial animal harvesting is defined as the temporary or permanent capture of live animals from their habitat without intended mortality, such as pet trade, falconry or green hunting. Non-lethal harvest of animals also includes removal of parts or products of animals that do not lead to the mortality of the host, such as vicuña fiber or wild honey. Unintended mortality may however occur in this category and the term “non-lethal” is therefore put in quotes.

Net Primary Production (NPP) from the terrestrial environment.

Give a specific harvester exclusive access to ocean areas.

Give a specific harvester exclusive access to ocean areasJ. E. Wilen, Cancino, & Uchida, 2012.

The science of the relationship between heat, work, temperature, and energy. In broad terms, thermodynamics deals with the transfer of energy from one place to another and from one form to another. The key concept is that heat is a form of energy corresponding to a definite amount of mechanical work. The behaviour of a complex thermodynamic system, such as Earth's atmosphere, can be understood by first applying the principles of states and properties to its component parts—in this case, water, water vapour, and the various gases making up the atmosphere. By isolating samples of material whose states and properties can be controlled and manipulated, properties and their interrelations can be studied as the system changes from state to state.