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Glossary definitions

The IPBES glossary terms definitions page provides definitions of terms used in IPBES assessments. Some definitions in this online glossary have been edited for consistency. Please refer to the specific assessment glossary for citations/authorities of definitions. 

We invite you to report any errors or omissions to [email protected].

Concept Definition Deliverable(s)
exploitation

The consumptive use of any natural resources.

Sustainable use assessment
exploratory scenario

See scenario.

exploratory scenario

Scenarios that examine a range of plausible futures, based on potential trajectories of drivers - either indirect (e.g. socio-political, economic and technological factors) or direct (e.g. habitat conversion, climate change).

Scenarios and models assessment
exploratory scenario

Scenarios that examine a range of plausible futures, based on potential trajectories of drivers - either indirect (e.g. socio-political, economic and technological factors) or direct (e.g. habitat conversion, climate change).

Sustainable use assessment
exposure

The state of having no protection from something potential harmful.

Asia-Pacific assessment
extensive forest management

Low or no input in regeneration or site amelioration is practiced in sparsely populated regions with large forest areas, such as boreal forests (Taiga) of Canada and Siberia, and across much of the world´s major tropical forest biomes.

extensive grazing

Extensive grazing is that in which livestock are raised on food that comes mainly from natural grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts. It differs from intensive grazing, where the animal feed comes mainly from artificial, seeded pastures.

Asia-Pacific assessment, Americas assessment
extensive grazing (lands)

A form of grazing in which livestock are raised on food that comes mainly from natural grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands and deserts. It differs from intensive grazing, where the animal feed comes mainly from artificial, seeded pastures.

Land degradation and restoration assessment
extent (spatial or temporal)

see spatial scale and temporal scale”.

Scenarios and models assessment
externality

A positive or negative consequence (benefits or costs) of an action that affects someone other than the agent undertaking that action and for which the agent is neither compensated nor penalized through the markets.

Land degradation and restoration assessment, Europe and Central Asia assessment, Global assessment (1st work programme), Asia-Pacific assessment, Sustainable use assessment, Americas assessment
externality

an economic concept of uncompensated environmental effects of production and consumption that affect consumer utility and enterprise cost outside the market mechanism

Invasive alien species assessment
extinction

A population, species or more inclusive taxonomic group has gone extinct when all its individuals have died. A species may go extinct locally (population extinction), regionally ( extinction of all populations in a country, continent or ocean) or globally. Populations or species reduced to such low numbers that they are no longer of economic or functional importance may be said to have gone economically or functionally extinct, respectively. Species extinctions are typically not documented immediately: for example, the IUCN Red List categories and criteria require there to be no reasonable doubt that all individuals have died, before a species is formally listed as Extinct (see IUCN Red List).

Sustainable use assessment
extinction debt

The future extinction of species due to events in the past, owing to a time lag between an effect such as habitat destruction or climate change, and the subsequent disappearance of species.

Global assessment (1st work programme), Global assessment (1st work programme), Europe and Central Asia assessment, Asia-Pacific assessment, Land degradation and restoration assessment, Pollination assessment
extinction

A population, species or more inclusive taxonomic group has gone extinct when all its individuals have died. A species may go extinct locally (population extinction), regionally (e.g. extinction of all populations in a country, continent or ocean) or glo.

extinction

The evolutionary termination of a species caused by the failure to reproduce and the death of all remaining members of the species; the natural failure to adapt to environmental change.

Americas assessment
extractive practice

Extractive practices are defined as the temporary or permanent removal of organisms, part of them or materials derived from them, and may result in mortality of the individual to be used (hunting or whole plant harvest), but does not necessarily do so (e.g. limited collection of plant propagules or shearing and releasing of vicuna).

Sustainable use assessment
extractives

Hydrocarbons (oil and gas) and minerals.

Americas assessment
nagoya protocol

The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS) is a supplementary agreement to the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. It provides a transparent legal framework for the effective implementation of one of the three objectives of the CBD: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, thereby contributing to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The Nagoya Protocol aims to create greater legal certainty and transparency for both providers and users of genetic resources by establishing more predictable conditions for access to genetic resources and helping to ensure benefit-sharing when genetic resources leave the country providing the genetic resources. The Nagoya Protocol on ABS was adopted on 29 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan and entered into force on 12 October 2014.

Global assessment (1st work programme), Sustainable use assessment
national

adj. Pertaining to a nation state or people who define themselves as a nation. A nation can be thought of as a large number of people associated with a particular territory and who are sufficiently conscious of their unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own.

Pollination assessment
national biodiversity strategies and action plans

The Convention on Biological Diversity calls on each of its Parties to prepare a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (Article 6a) that establishes specific activities and targets for achieving the objectives of the Convention. These plans mostly are implemented by a partnership of conservation organizations. Species or habitats which are the subject of NBSAPs are the governments stated priorities for action and therefore raise greater concern where they are threatened. NBSAPs do not carry legal status and listed species and habitat types are not necessarily protected (although some are covered by other legislation) (Hesselink et al., 2007).

Global assessment (1st work programme)
national biodiversity strategies and action plans

The Convention on Biological Diversity calls on each of its Parties to prepare a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (Article 6a) that establishes specific activities and targets for achieving the objectives of the Convention. These plans mostly are implemented by a partnership of conservation organizations. Species or habitats which are the subject of NBSAPs are the governments stated priorities for action and therefore raise greater concern where they are threatened. NBSAPs do not carry legal status and listed species and habitat types are not necessarily protected (although some are covered by other legislation).

Sustainable use assessment
native forest

Forests that are made up of native tree species, and are either primary (have never been clear-cut) or secondary (regenerating naturally).

Land degradation and restoration assessment
native pollinator

A pollinator species living in an area where it evolved, or dispersed without human intervention. the study of first principles or the essence of things.

Pollination assessment
native species

Indigenous species of animals or plants that naturally occur in a given region or ecosystem.

Americas assessment, Global assessment (1st work programme), Europe and Central Asia assessment, Africa assessment, Asia-Pacific assessment, Land degradation and restoration assessment, Sustainable use assessment
native species

taxa that have originated in a given area (their natural range) without human involvement, or that have arrived there without intentional or unintentional intervention of humans, from an area in which they are native (IPBES glossary). This definition excludes products of hybridization involving alien taxa since “human involvement”, in this case, includes the introduction of an alien parent

Invasive alien species assessment
natural area

Regions that have not been significantly altered by humankind.

Sustainable use assessment
natural capital

A concept referring to the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources ( plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals) that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people (UNDP, 2016b). Within the IPBES conceptual framework, it is part of the nature category, representing an economic-utilitarian perspective on nature, specifically those aspects of nature that people use (or anticipate to use) as source of Nature's contributions to people.

Sustainable use assessment
natural capital accounts

Sets of linked accounts that contain information about the type and quantities and, where possible, the value of the stocks of natural assets and the flows of services generated by them. The accounts contain two main components: physical accounts - types, quantities and condition of assets; and monetary accounts - application of monetary units of valuation to selected flows of services on an annual basis and associated values of stocks.

Land degradation and restoration assessment
natural capital

A concept referring to the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources (e.g. plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals) that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people (UNDP, 2016b). Within the IPBES conceptual framework, it is part of t.

natural capital

An economic metaphor for the limited stocks of physical and biological resources found on Earth.

Europe and Central Asia assessment
natural capital

The world's stocks of natural assets which include geology, soil, air, water and all living things.

Asia-Pacific assessment
natural capital

The world's stocks of natural assets which include geology, soil, air, water and all living things. It is from this natural capital that humans derive a wide range of services, often called ecosystem services, which make human life possible.

Land degradation and restoration assessment
natural direct drivers

Direct drivers that are not the result of human activities and are beyond human control.

Scenarios and models assessment
natural disaster

The effects of natural hazards, which are natural processes or phenomena occurring in the biosphere that may constitute a damaging event. Natural disasters can be for instance: earthquakes, floods, landslide, volcanic eruption, etc.

Sustainable use assessment
natural habitat

Areas composed of viable assemblages of plant and/or animal species of largely native origin and/or where human activity had not essentially modified an area's primary ecological functions and species composition (UNEP-WCMC, 2014).

Global assessment (1st work programme)
natural habitat

Areas composed of viable assemblages of plant and/or animal species of largely native origin and/or where human activity had not essentially modified an area's primary ecological functions and species composition.

Sustainable use assessment
natural heritage

Natural features, geological and physiographical formations and delineated areas that constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants and natural sites of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty (UNESCO, 1972).

Global assessment (1st work programme)
natural heritage

Natural features, geological and physiographical formations and delineated areas that constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants and natural sites of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.

Sustainable use assessment
naturalized species

A species that, once it is introduced outside its native distributional range, establishes self-sustaining populations.

Land degradation and restoration assessment, Sustainable use assessment, Pollination assessment
nature

In the context of IPBES, refers to the natural world with an emphasis on its living components. Within the context of western science, it includes categories such as biodiversity, ecosystems (both structure and functioning), evolution, the biosphere, humankind’s shared evolutionary heritage, and biocultural diversity. Within the context of other knowledge systems, it includes categories such as Mother Earth and systems of life, and it is often viewed as inextricably linked to humans, not as a separate entity (see Mother Earth).

Sustainable use assessment, Invasive alien species assessment
nature

In the context of IPBES, nature refers to the natural world with an emphasis on its living components. Within the context of Western science, it includes categories such as biodiversity, ecosystems (both structure and functioning), evolution, the biosphere, humankind's shared evolutionary heritage, and biocultural diversity. Within the context of other knowledge systems, it includes categories such as Mother Earth and systems of life, and it is often viewed as inextricably linked to humans, not as a separate entity (see Mother Earth).

Land degradation and restoration assessment, Europe and Central Asia assessment
nature

In the context of the Platform, refers to the natural world with an emphasis on biodiversity. Within the context of western science, it includes categories such as biodiversity, ecosystems (both structure and functioning), evolution, the biosphere, humankind's shared evolutionary heritage, and biocultural diversity. Within the context of other knowledge systems, it includes categories such as Mother Earth and systems of life, and it is often viewed as inextricably linked to humans, not as a separate entity.

Asia-Pacific assessment
nature

In the context of the Platform, refers to the natural world with an emphasis on its living components. Within the context of Western science, it includes categories such as biodiversity, ecosystems (both structure and functioning), evolution, the biosphere, humankind's shared evolutionary heritage, and biocultural diversity. Within the context of other knowledge systems, it includes categories such as Mother Earth and systems of life, and it is often viewed as inextricably linked to humans, not as a separate entity (see Mother Earth).

nature

The natural world, with particular emphasis on biodiversity.

Scenarios and models assessment, Global assessment (1st work programme)
nature

In the context of IPBES, refers to the natural world with an emphasis on its living components. Within the context of western science, it includes categories such as biodiversity, ecosystems (both structure and functioning), evolution, the biosphere, humankind's shared evolutionary heritage, and biocultural diversity. Within the context of other knowledge systems, it includes categories such as Mother Earth and systems of life, and it is often viewed as inextricably linked to humans, not as a separate entity (see Mother Earth).

Americas assessment
nature

The living parts of the biosphere, including their diversity and abundance and functional interactions with one another and with the abiotic parts of the earth system. Increasingly, nature is modified by human influences. Many features of nature have been co-produced by humans.This is a definition specifically made for the IPBES-IPCC workshop report, since neither IPBES nor IPCC has an existing definition. The closest is the IPBES Global Assessment Chapter 1 box 1.2 definition of Nature: Nature: the nonhuman world, including co- produced features, with particular emphasis on living organisms, their diversity, their interactions among themselves and with their abiotic environment.”

IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop on biodiversity and climate change
nature-based recreation

Nature-based recreation may be defined as all forms of leisure that rely on the natural environment (Jacobs & Cottrell, 2015). In the context of this assessment, it may involve extractive practices (i.e. fishing, gathering, terrestrial animal harvesting) or non-extractive practices (i.e. observing).

Sustainable use assessment
nature-based solutions

Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.

IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop on biodiversity and climate change
nature-based solutions

Actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016).

Global assessment (1st work programme), Sustainable use assessment
nature-based tourism

Nature-based tourism is the activities of persons traveling to natural areas outside their usual environment for leisure and other purposes (based on UNWTO, glossary). In the context of this assessment, it may involve extractive practices (i.e. fishing, gathering, terrestrial animal harvesting) or non-extractive practices (i.e. observing.

Sustainable use assessment