The total sum of the world's differences, irrespective of their origin. The concept encompasses biological diversity at all its levels and cultural diversity in all its manifestations. It is derived from the myriad ways in which humans have interacted with their natural surroundings.
Conservation actions made in the service of sustaining the biophysical and sociocultural components of dynamic, interacting, and interdependent social-ecological systems.
A measure of the amount of oxygen required or consumed for the microbiological decomposition (oxidation) of organic material in water. The purpose of this indicator is to assess the quality of water available to consumers in localities or communities for basic and commercial needs. It is also one of a group of indicators of ecosystem health.
See Ecocentrism.
Ethical perspective holding that all life (including humans, fauna, flora and domestic animals) deserves equal moral consideration or has equal moral standing. It contrasts with worldviews characterized as anthropocentric, which places humans at the center.
Recognizing the importance of non- human life.
The capacity of a country, a region, or the world, to produce useful biological materials for its human population and to absorb waste materials.
The ecosystem's capacity to produce biological materials used by people and to absorb waste material generated by humans, under current management schemes and extraction technologies. The biocapacity indicator used in the present report is based on the Global Footprint Network, unless otherwise specified.
The definition that follows is for the purpose of this assessment only: Biocapacity has a variety of definitions, but is defined by the Global Footprint Network the as the ecosystems' capacity to produce biological materials used by people and to absorb waste material generated by humans, under current management schemes and extraction technologies. The ‘biocapacity' indicator used in this report is based on the Global Footprint Network unless otherwise specified.