Glossary

Environmental challenges

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A
access (rights)
the right to enter, or access, a property. A person with access rights may not necessarily be the
owner. For example, in Britain there are areas of open country on mountain, moor, heath and down
that the public can access, but with many restrictions:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/open-access-land-management-rights-and-responsibilities

alienation (rights)
the right to lease or sell any of the other four property rights (access, withdrawal, management,
exclusion). Someone who has alienation rights is usually called the owner.

allometric scaling
the rich diversity of species on our planet come in many different shapes and sizes, but the
relationship between the attributes of the different organisms and size can remain relatively
constant from the very smallest organisms to the very large. Examples include metabolic rate
and body size; and one that was discussed by Galileo, increasing robustness of skeletons with
increasing body size.

AONB
an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is an area of countryside in England, Wales or
Northern Ireland which has been designated for conservation due to its distinctive character and
natural beauty.

anthropocentric
viewpoint that puts humans at the centre of decision making. In environmental management
the assumption is that the natural world is there for the benefit of humans.

Arrow impossibility
paradox devised by Ken Arrow that demonstrates the potential impossibility of aggregating
preferences.

authorised entrant
A person or group with rights to access a property or area.

authorised user
A person or group with property rights that include access, withdrawal and management. They
do not usually have rights of exclusion or alienation, so cannot control others rights or access
to the resource.

B
biodiversity hotspot
a relatively small number of places on the planet contain most of the worlds species. Where
these concentrations of biodiversity have been substantially affected by human activities they
are called hotspots.

C
cardinal scale
numerical scale with a regular series of units, eg length, cost.

claimant

A person or group with property rights that include access, withdrawal and management. They
do not usually have rights of exclusion or alienation, so cannot control others rights or access
to the resource.

climax theory
each set of environmental conditions, as determined for example by soils and climate, has a
particular type of biological community, the climax, associated with it.

Coasian bargaining
strategy for resolving environmental disputes, put forward by Ron Coase. Parties involved in the
dispute come to a mutually acceptable agreement if property rights are clear and transaction
costs are sufficiently low.

commensurate
values are similar enough to be compared.

commodification
treating something that is not usually bought or sold as an asset that can be bought or sold
(for example, something that is considered a common resource such as a forest).

common pool resources (CPRs)

natural and man-made resources made available to all, but where one persons use (extraction
and consumption) subtracts from anothers ability to use. Preventing or limiting access to CPRs
is both difficult and costly. Fisheries, irrigation systems and forests are classic examples of
common pool resources.

communal rights
rights that a community as a whole has over a natural resource.

confirmation bias
the tendency when selecting information or evidence, to only select that which supports your
existing viewpoint.

conundrum of future generations

whether resources should be preserved for future generations, even at the expense of current
generations.

cowboy economy
continuous exploitation of resources at frontiers without consideration to their eventual
exhaustion.

D
density-dependent population dynamics
changes in populations are due to changes in the density of a population rather than an
external effect, such as climate.

deontological
rules and laws that set definite codes of conduct.

deterministic causality
when a particular effect is considered to be determined by a particular cause.

Deutsch-Ostafrika
The area of eastern Africa that includes present day Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda that was
under German administration from 18911919.

differentiated responsibility
different levels of responsibility for different groups. It recognises historical differences in the
contributions to problems, and differences in respective economic and technical capacity to
tackle these problems. It is commonly used in environmental agreements.

discourse
perspective or argument.

E
ecocentric
viewpoint that regards all living things as being interdependent and no one species has a right
to domination over others.

ecological succession
if a climax biological community is disturbed, then ecological succession will take place until
the climax is restored.

ecosystem services
the processes and products of an ecosystem.

egalitarian society
each citizen has an equal say in governmental decision making.

elite capture

 when resources that are intended for the benefit of the larger population are appropriated by
individuals who are advantaged by their geographic, political, economic, ethnic or educational
status. This is often seen in development programmes, especially those relating to irrigation and
other common pool resource projects.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

process measuring the potential environmental impacts of a future project.

environmental Kuznets curve

an inverted U-shaped curve that describes the theory that levels of environmental degradation
or pollution will first increase with development, then peak and decline with increasing wealth.

exclusion (rights)
the right to decide who will have access, withdrawal and management rights over a resource.

externality
the right to decide who will have access, withdrawal and management rights over a resource.

F
Free market economics
The term free market refers to one that is able to reach a state of equilibrium without
institutional intervention. Free markets are capitalist in nature and as such support private
ownership and highly competitive markets. In practice a truly free market economy is little
more than a theoretical concept, as restrictions on the ownership and exchange of commodities
appear in all countries.

free market economy

theory of economics where the market controls itself due to responses to supply and demand.

G
genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
organisms whose genetic makeup has been altered by man, usually to enhance productivity,
nutrition, or response to chemicals or predators.

H
heterogeneous habitats
situation in which there is variety in different habitats. In other words, they are not the same or
uniform.

hierarchical society
citizens have different levels of input to governance based on their position in society.

historical institutionalism
laws and social norms (institutions in the sense of Douglass North) are developed at a particular
point of history but can persist through time, even through changed circumstances.

I
incommensurate
value types are too different to be compared.

individualistic theory
ecosystems are composed of individuals acting and reacting independently rather than in a
direction.

(New) Institutional Economics

economic perspective that focuses on the social and legal norms and rules (i.e. institutions)
that underlie economic activity. The analysis extends beyond earlier forms of institutional and
neoclassical economics.

institutional matrix
alternative to free market economics which focusses on the roles of groups and constraints on
economic markets.

institutions
legal and societal constraints that structure human interaction.

K
L
M
management (rights)
the right to transform a resource and regulate internal usage patterns.

N
O
ordinal scale
scale on which data is shown simply in order of magnitude, since there is no standard of
measurement of differences. Eg preferences, rankings.

organic
grown without use of artificial pesticides or fertiliser. Organic farming often also promotes
humane treatment of animals and sustainable farming practices.

organisation
groups of individuals bound together by some common purpose to achieve certain objectives.

owner
A person or group with property rights that include access, withdrawal, management, exclusion
and alienation.

P
Pareto principle
20% of the population own 80% of the land. The principle has also been extended to wealth

generally.

phylogenetic
genetic relationship between different organisms. For example, apes are the closest
phylogenetic relatives of humans. Some species are so closely related phylogenetically that
they are genetically almost indistinguishable even though they may look quite different.

Pigovian taxes
taxes charged on market process that create negative effects (externalities).

pirates
powerful interests who manipulate laws to put resources under their own control.

precautionary principle
when an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary
measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established
scientifically.

press release
brief information pack sent to media outlets about an issue, incident or document release.

proprietor
A person or group with property rights that include access, withdrawal, management, and
exclusion. They do not usually have alienation rights, so cannot change the property rights of
others.

public goods
commodities or services that are provided to all members of society, either by the government
or governmental institutions such as local councils, or a private organisations. Public goods are
both non-excludable and non-rivalous and are often provided to benefit public well-being. City
parks and street lighting are two examples

public trust doctrine

natural resources are held in trust by the state for public use, even if those resources are
privately owned.

R
Reciprocity
a return is expected from a gift.

Rice pile model

dropping individual grains of rice to form a pile creates a series of avalanches of rice grains with
many small avalanches and fewer large ones.

S
self-organised criticality
simple local interactions between individuals generate larger scale effects that follow patterns.

spaceman economy
closed economic system in which recycling and linkage is more important than throughput.

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

system of informing and supporting environmental decision making for policy and project
planning.

subjunctive reasoning
reasoning that explores what if scenarios.

T
Teleology
driven towards a pre-ordained goal. In ecology this approach assumes that successional stages
are hierarchal and will end up in a climax that is determined by environmental factors such as
climate.

Terms of Reference (TOR)

terms at the beginning of a Strategic Environmental Assessment, that outline the scope of the
project, how the assessment will be tackled and who will be involved.

three letter acronyms (TLAs)

often used to abbreviate long technical terms, particularly in environmental management.

transact / transactions

 the action of making a purchase or agreement, including any preparation needed, such as
research or contracts.

transaction costs
full range of costs associated with buying, selling, and transferring ownership of goods and
services

tragedy of the commons

theory that if a resource is shared, individuals will selfishly use that resource to excess, and
ignore the needs of other users.

trophic pyramid
hierarchal way of looking at ecological relationships with primary producers such as
photosynthetic plants at the bottom of the pyramid. Going up the pyramid, the primary
producers are eaten by herbivores which are then eaten by carnivores.

Topography
variation in landscape, for example mountains and valleys.

type I error

a type I error is incorrectly rejecting a true null hypothesis, or a false positive.

type II error

a type II error is incorrectly retaining a false null hypothesis.

U
utilitarian
values that maximise benefits for society as a whole.

V
vegetation biomes
distinct types of plant formation occur under different environmental conditions, for example
tropical rainforests occur in areas of high rainfall in the tropics.

virtues
values based on concepts of moral character and happiness.

voter paradox
paradox devised by Ken Arrow, illustrating that voting cannot necessarily aggregate different
preferences.

W
withdrawal (rights)
the right to harvest specific products from a resource.

X
Y
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