Front materials
Contents, index of figures and tables, acroynms and terms
Contents
Index of figures
Index of tables
Acronyms and abbreviations
IP
Indigenous Peoples
IUCN
International Union for Conservation of Nature
LC
Local Communities
VBC
Voluntary biodiversity credit
WWF
World Wildlife Fund
Terms and definitions
Biodiversity hotspots: A biogeographic region characterized by exceptionally high levels of species richness and a significant degree of habitat loss. These areas are recognized for their extraordinary concentration of endemic species, meaning species that are found nowhere else in the world.
Components: the elements comprise the biodiversity unit, dimensions ( Area, Time, Integrity), and category (Value).
Conservation: There is a technical argument that this methodology falls under the definition of ‘preservation’ in many environmental contexts. “Conservation seeks the proper use of nature, while preservation seeks protection of nature from use." For simplicity, and readability with a non-technical IP and LC audience we have used the term conservation throughout (Becker and Ghimire 2003).
Ecosystem integrity: An ecosystem is generally understood to have integrity when its dominant ecological characteristics (e.g. elements of composition, structure, function, and ecological processes) occur within their natural ranges of variation, and extinction, and can withstand and recover from most perturbations.
Ecosystem services: The benefits people derive from ecosystems.
Ecosystem value: The planet-wide value of an ecosystem in the context of global biodiversity loss. Often referred to as “significance” in other contexts.
Impact: We use the term impact to describe negative effects on biodiversity from human actions. This is often referred to in different industries as ecological impacts, corporate disclosures, or environmental impact assessments. In the case of the unit, it is meant to represent real impacts on biodiversity and not simply disclosure of these impacts which are often insufficient or partial.
Methodology: is a protocol, often validated by certifiers in open review, with a standardized set of instructions to make meaning out of metrics.
Metric: Means any core measurement. Typically it involves not only the measurement but a set of instructions or parameters for the measurement.
Monitoring period: this is sometimes called crediting time and most projects will have a minimum monitoring timeframe of two years. Restoration projects have longer monitoring periods than conservation projects. Monitoring period is independent of the unit time of 1 month.
Project area: this is sometimes called the crediting area and might be segmented for different actions. For most sites, this will be an area greater than 1000ha. The unit does allow for crediting from smaller areas incentivizing small projects, but a lot of biodiversity actions occur at a sq km (marine science or connectivity studies). Project area is independent of the unit area of 1 hectare.
Species: Group of individuals or natural populations that are actually or potentially interbreeding, reproductively isolated from other similar groups by their physiological properties (reducing incompatibility between parents or sterility of hybrids, or both).
Species richness: The population of different species present in a particular area or ecosystem. It is a measure of biodiversity that quantifies the diversity of species within a given habitat or geographical region, but it does not speak to the abundance or distribution of the species.
Unit: is a final standardized format for a metric or methodology. Such as hectares, or tons, or bushels. In the case of biodiversity, a unit has time, area, integrity dimensions, and a value "grade".
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