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.

The major of the metabolic pathways for CO2 fixation by plants, involving a 3-carbon organic intermediate molecule. C3 photosynthetic plants possess a specific leaf structure, and are not adapted to non-optimal conditions.

Plants that use C3 photosynthesis to capture CO2.

C4 photosynthesis is an evolved metabolic mechanism for plant carbon fixation, in which atmospheric CO2 is first incorporated into a 4-carbon intermediate molecule. It allows for a more efficient process compared to C3 photosynthesis, especially in non-optimal water availability conditions and in the presence of high solar radiation.

Plants that use C4 photosynthesis to capture CO2. The Poaceae family (grasses) accounts for about half of the C4 species.

The use of observations, or in some cases a reference model, during model development to ensure that the model output compares favourably with the properties of the system being modelled.

Hunting of animals in confined enclosures where they are unable to escape.

An economic policy instrument in which the State sets an overall environmental target (the cap) and assigns environmental impact allowances (or quotas) to actors that they can trade among each other.

Defined by the United Nations Development Programme as the process through which individuals, organisations and societies obtain, strengthen and maintain their capabilities to set and achieve their own development objectives over time. Within the context of this assessment, these capabilities include human resources and technical capacity required to support scenario analysis and modelling.

Process through which individuals, organizations and society obtain, strengthen and maintain their capability to set and achieve their own development objectives over time.

Capacity development can be described across six broad capacity dimensions. Motivational capacity builds awareness and desire to consider multiple values. Analytical capacity provides knowledge and tools to analyse multiple values. Bridging capacity brings together different ways of knowing and doing, often creating new knowledge in the process. Negotiation capacity navigates trade-offs and mainstreams into policy and practice. Social network capacity is the capacity to learn together, act and adapt or transform. Governance capacity creates formal and informal mechanisms for a socially just governance environment. These dimensions embody many concepts and principles for capacity development and recognition in decision making.

Defined by the United Nations Development Programme as “the process through which individuals, organizations and societies obtain, strengthen and maintain their capabilities to set and achieve their own development objectives over time”.

Defined by the United Nations Development Programme as the process through which individuals, organizations and societies obtain, strengthen and maintain their capabilities to set and achieve their own development objectives over time. IPBES promotes and facilitates capacity-building, to improve the capacity of countries to make informed policy decisions on biodiversity and ecosystem-services.

A type of good that can be consumed now. However, if consumption is deferred there becomes an increased supply of that good which is likely to remain available. In a fundamental sense, capital consists of any produced thing that can enhance a person’s power to perform economically useful or other beneficial work. Capital may be monetary, well-being or environmental or any combination of those goods.

The process by which carbon is exchanged among the ecosystems of the Earth.

The carbon cycle is the process by which carbon is exchanged among the ecosystems of the Earth.

A way to place emissions of various radiative forcing agents on a common footing by accounting for their effect on climate. It describes, for a given mixture and amount of greenhouse gases, the amount of CO2 that would have the same global warming ability, when measured over a specified time period. For the purpose of this report, greenhouse gas emissions (unless otherwise specified) are the sum of the basket of greenhouse gases listed in Annex A to the Kyoto Protocol, expressed as CO2e assuming a 100-year global warming potential.

A measure of the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions, including carbon dioxide equivalents, that is directly and indirectly caused by an activity or is accumulated over the life stages of a product.

A compensation for carbon dioxide emissions resulting from industrial or other human activity; a quantifiable amount of such compensation as a tradable commodity.

The long-term storage of carbon in plants, soils, geologic formations, and the ocean. Carbon sequestration occurs both naturally and as a result of anthropogenic activities and typically refers to the storage of carbon that has the immediate potential to become carbon dioxide gas.

A method of reducing greenhouse gases by injecting carbon dioxide produced in other kinds of industrial processes into deep underground wells or beds of underground materials so that it does not enter the atmosphere. Transfer of atmospheric CO2 into long-lived pools and storing it securely so it is not immediately reemitted.

Any process, activity or mechanism that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The biological process by which carbon in the form carbon dioxide is taken up from the atmosphere and incorporated through photosynthesis into different compartments of ecosystems, such as biomass, wood, or soil organic carbon. Also, the technological process of capturing waste carbon dioxide from industry or power generation, and storing it so that it will not enter the atmosphere.

The technological process of capturing waste carbon dioxide from industry or power generation, and storing it so that it will not enter the atmosphere.

A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the governments on business profits, or added to the cost of goods, services, and transactions in proportion to the consequential amounts of carbon released into the atmosphere.

See 'Carbon sequestration'.

Refers to the tendency for certain carbon-intensive technological systems to persist over time, ‘locking out' lower-carbon alternatives, and owing to a combination of linked technical, economic, and institutional factors.