Glossary definitions

The distribution, size and abundances of patch types represented within a landscape. Configuration is spatially explicit because it refers not only to the variety and abundance of patch types, but also to their placement or location (dispersion) in the landscape.

The capacity or potential of landscapes to provide services (Bolliger & Kienast, 2010).

Landscape heterogeneity is a complex phenomenon involving the size, shape and composition of different landscape units and the spatial (and temporal) relations between them (G. Cale & J. Hobbs, 1994).

Landscape heterogeneity is a complex phenomenon involving the size, shape and composition of different landscape units and the spatial (and temporal) relations between them.

An activity concerned with reconciling competing land uses while protecting natural processes and significant cultural and natural resources.

The landscape scale approach incorporates the socio-ecological system, including natural and human-modified ecosystems, influenced by ecological, historical, economic, and socio-cultural processes. The landscape includes an array of stakeholders small enough to be manageable, but large enough to deliver multiple functions for stakeholders with differing interests.

A human-defined area ranging in size from c. 3 km2 to c. 3002 km. Landscape is spatially heterogeneous in at least one factor of interest and often consists of a mosaic of interacting ecosystems.

An area delineated by an actor for a specific set of objectives, constitutes an area in which entities, including humans, interact according to rules (physical, biological, and social) that determine their relationships; Place-based systems that result from interactions between people, land, institutions (laws, rules and regulations) and values. Interactive aspects that define a landscape are functional interactions, negotiated spaces and multiple scales.

An area of land that contains a mosaic of ecosystems, including human-dominated ecosystems.

The control (whether through ownership, lease, concession, contracts, quotas, or general power) of larger than locally-typical amounts of land by any persons or entities (public or private, foreign or domestic) via any means (‘legal’ or ‘illegal’) for purposes of speculation, extraction, resource control or commodification at the expense of agroecology, land stewardship, food sovereignty and human rights. It is sometimes also called land grabbing.

See ‘Grabbing (of wild species and space)’.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), in force since 1994, defines the rights and obligations of nations (167 at present) with regard to the use of the world's oceans and their resources, and the protection of the marine and coastal environment. The UNCLOS also defines national marine jurisdiction on maritime territories and provides guidelines related to the use and management of marine environment and resources.

The dissolution and movement of dissolved substances by water.

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.

Typically refers to checking model outputs for consistency with observations. However, since models cannot be validated in the formal sense of the term (i.e. proven to be true), some scientists prefer to use the words benchmarking or evaluation.

See models.

It is the process of documenting the existence of values, identifying when and where and by whom they are expressed, that in turn allows characterizing values. Valuation of nature can inform decision-making about numerous human-nature relationships; it can support decision processes about alternative projects or policies, inform the design of policy tools and instruments, for conservation and sustainable management of nature or to improve justice. Outside the formal policy space, valuation is also undertaken by academia, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and by indigenous and local communities (IPLC). IPLC undertake valuation not only to make decisions about nature, but also to assess their relationships with nature, to plan collectively, resolve conflicts, defend their territories, and as a means for strengthening and reciprocating their connections with nature.

Valuation approaches are higher level assumptions, ideas or beliefs that underpin methods. They translate key decisions on how a method is to be applied or how the information generated by methods is to be interpreted. For each approach there are often multiple accepted methods that adhere to the basic assumptions and ideas of the given approach. Valuation approaches can also be manifested as “traditions” or widely accepted and expected protocols for undertaking valuation. Valuation traditions are heavily informed and influenced by the cultural context and/or epistemological worldviews.

Are the specific techniques and accepted formal procedures that are applied to gather and analyse information from nature and society in order to and understand or make explicit the state of nature and its importance to people a) quantity, quality and status of nature including its spatial and temporal variations; b) the relevance or importance of nature to people and societies; and c) the nature of human-nature and nature-human relations in terms of how people and societies embed and live out their values of nature (as actions, principles, worldviews or philosophies).

A value can be the importance of something for itself or for others, now or in the future, close by or at a distance. This importance can be considered in three broad classes. 1. The importance that something has subjectively, and may be based on experience. 2. The importance that something has in meeting objective needs. 3. The intrinsic value of something.

A value can be the importance of something for itself or for others, now or in the future, close by or at a distance. This importance can be considered in three broad classes: The importance that something has subjectively, and may be based on experience. The importance that something has in meeting objective needs. The intrinsic value of something.

A value can be a measure. In the biophysical sciences, any quantified measure can be seen as a value.

A value can be the preference someone has for something or for a particular state of the world. Preference involves the act of making comparisons, either explicitly or implicitly. Preference refers to the importance attributed to one entity relative to another one.

A value can be a principle or core belief underpinning rules and moral judgments. Values as principles vary from one culture to another and also between individuals and groups.

a contact network, which provides opportunities for the transmission of contagious diseases within and between sectors. It follows that these chains (networks) can be understood and taken into account in planning risk management strategies for disease prevention and control” especially in relation with “risky parts of the value chain”

Value change refers to the modification of people’s values or of the prioritization of their values in particular contexts. Value change processes occur at different social scales, from large-scale cultural shifts (e.g. intergenerational shifts due to changing demography or changes to shared values) to small-scale personal shifts (e.g. values formation and change over an individual’s lifetime). Individual, social and social-ecological experiences and interactions influence value change; examples include formal and informal education, social practices, group conformation processes, personal experiences and shocks, and social-ecological events (e.g. natural disasters, pandemics).

Values can be expressed explicitly through language and implicitly through actions like choices, decisions made, everyday practices or rituals. Valuation methods are used to undertake explicit valuation. Methods and approaches to integrate and bridge values, provide knowledge about nature’s values as input to decision-making.

'Value formation' refers to how values develop in the first place. It can occur in individual-focused processes, trough socially-oriented processes or in social-ecological processes that do not separate humans and nature.

Indicators of value are quantitative and qualitative measures of the importance of nature to people. Indicators used to express the value of nature can be biophysical, economic and socio-cultural.