indirect driver (of biodiversity)

Indirect drivers are the forces that underlie and shape the extent, severity and combination of anthropogenic direct drivers that operate in a given place. They include key institutional and governance structures in addition to social, economic and cultural contexts. They are the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and can be external to the system in question. Indirect drivers operate almost always in concert and across multiple scales and varying levels of proximity from the location in question, from the global (markets, commodity prices, consumption patterns), to the national and regional (demographic change, migration, domestic markets, national policies, governance, cultural and technological change) to the local (poverty, economic opportunities).