Glossary definitions

The strategies used by people to promote both high quality and quantity of forage for domesticated livestock.

Great Acceleration refers to the acceleration of human-induced changes of the second half of the 20th century, unique in the history of human existence. Many human activities reached take-off points and sharply accelerated towards the end of the century.

A mode of private financing that tap the debt capital market through fixed income instruments (i.e. bonds) to raise capital to finance climate-friendly projects in key sectors of, but not limited to, transport, energy, building and industry, water, agriculture and forestry and waste.

Green growth means fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies.

Green hunting occurs with tranquilizer dart guns and the animals are released alive. This is typically performed for veterinary procedures or translocation, and has been suggested as an alternative to lethal forms of hunting.

Green infrastructure refers to the natural or semi-natural systems (e.g. riparian vegetation) that provide services for water resources management with equivalent or similar benefits to conventional (built) “grey” infrastructure (e.g. water treatment plants).

A process whereby public authorities seek to procure goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life-cycle when compared to goods, services and works with the same primary function that would otherwise be procured.

Period of food crop productivity growth that started in the 1960s due to a combination of high rates of investment in crop research, infrastructure, and market development and appropriate policy support, and whose environmental impacts have been mixed: on one side saving land conversion to agriculture, on the other side promoting an overuse of inputs and cultivation on areas otherwise improper to high levels of intensification, such as slopes.

A set of research and the development of technology transfer initiatives occurring between the 1930s and the late 1960s (with prequels in the work of the agrarian geneticist Nazareno Strampelli in the 1920s and 1930s), that increased agricultural production worldwide, particularly in the developing world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. The initiatives resulted in the adoption of new technologies, including: new, high- yielding varieties (HYVs) of cereals, especially dwarf wheats and rices, in association with chemical fertilizers and agro-chemicals, and with controlled water-supply (usually involving irrigation) and new methods of cultivation, including mechanization. All of these together were seen as a package of practices to supersede traditional technology and to be adopted as a whole.

Period of food crop productivity growth that started in the 1960s due to a combination of high rates of investment in crop research, infrastructure, and market development and appropriate policy support, and whose environmental impacts have been mixed: on.

Water transpired through plants to the atmosphere.

Those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere, and clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect.

Greenhouse gases are those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of terrestrial radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect. Water vapour (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and ozone (O3) are the primary greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Moreover, there are a number of entirely human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as the halocarbons and other chlorine- and brominecontaining substances, dealt with under the Montreal Protocol. Beside CO2, N2O and CH4, the Kyoto Protocol deals with the greenhouse gases sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).

Greenhouse gases are those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of terrestrial radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect. Water vapour (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and ozone (O3) are the primary greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Moreover, there are a number of entirely human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as the halocarbons and other chlorine- and bromine containing substances, dealt with under the Montreal Protocol. Beside CO2, N2O and CH4, the Kyoto Protocol deals with the greenhouse gases sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).

Any wastewater that is not contaminated with faecal matter.

Total terrestrial Gross Primary Production (GPP) is the total mass of carbon taken out of the atmosphere by plant photosynthesis.

The amount of carbon fixed by the autotrophs (e.g. plants and algaes).

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.

In the IUCN Red List terminology, a threatened species is any species listed in the Red List categories: critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable.

Harmful or fatal effect of a small change in environmental conditions that exceeds the limit of tolerance of an organism or population of a species.

Magnitudes or intensities that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested.

Intertidal, non-vegetated, soft sediment habitats, found between mean high- water and mean low-water spring tide datums and generally located in estuaries and other low energy marine environments (Dineen, 2010).

In agriculture, the preparation of soil for planting and the cultivation of soil after planting.