The ethical belief that humans alone possess intrinsic value. Anthropocentrism qualifies an action or a perception of a given situation that is interpreted by humans or consider humans as the main focus. Similarly, the value that something has for human beings and human purposes may be considered an anthropocentric value. The concept of nature’s contributions to people (NCP), for example, is a fundamentally anthropocentric notion.

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; 2020 IPBES Global Report Glossary.

Within anthropocentric value views, there is a relevant distinction between strong and weak anthropocentrism. At the strong anthropocentrism end of the spectrum, nature is primarily seen as a provider of goods and services for human activity. This includes attributing a privilege to human beings over nature. At the other end of the spectrum, weak anthropocentrism values nature for the benefits it provides to humanity but is critical of the exploitation of nature and argues for the importance of caring for and maintaining the resource base of nature for sustainable human use. 

Source:  IPBES (2022) The Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature.

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or the entire Earth. It encompasses the diversity of species, genetic variation within species, and the range of ecosystems that house these organisms. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary. 

A generic term for an area with a high diversity of species, or a high number of endemic species (i.e., only occurring in that area). It is also being used as a precise term applied to geographic areas that meet specific criteria regarding endemic species diversity and habitat loss.  

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; cf. Myers et al., 2000.

Direct drivers are those natural and anthropogenic factors that affect biodiversity directly. Anthropogenic direct drivers can be conceptualized as the set of activities performed by humans that result in biodiversity loss (e.g. land-system change, intensification, etc.). Indirect drivers are the forces that underlie and shape the extent, severity and combination of anthropogenic direct drivers that operate in any given place. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary. 

Indicators used to quantify biodiversity, such as current state and trends around species extinction, biodiversity footprints of industrial and financial sectors, and dependencies on biodiversity-related services. However, there is little consensus on which common metrics to use for assessing biodiversity impacts. While one biodiversity metric does stand out—the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), a percentage estimate of the original number of species that remain and their abundance in a given area—it only partially reflects human impact on Earth systems. 

Source: Goedkoop, et al. (2023) Bridging the Gap; UK Natural History Museum (2025) Biodiversity Intactness Index. 

Global-scale zones, generally defined by the type of plant life that they support in response to average rainfall and temperature patterns. For example, forest, desert, tundra, coral reefs, savannahs, grasslands, wetlands, croplands, etc. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary. 

Biosphere Integrity refers to the capacity of ecosystems across the planet to support life and maintain the overall health and stability of the Earth system, [which] depends on the health, diversity, and interactions of the organisms that make up these ecosystems. Biosphere integrity includes the diversity, extent, and health of living organisms and ecosystems affecting the state of the planet which co-regulates the energy balance and chemical cycles on Earth. Disrupting biodiversity threatens this co-regulation and dynamic stability.  

Source: Stockholm Resilience Centre (2026), Stockholm University.

A dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; Cf. Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992.

A strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. An ecosystem approach helps create a balance between conservation, sustainable use, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits. It applies appropriate scientific methodologies focused on levels of biological organization, which encompass the essential structure, processes, functions and interactions among organisms and their environment. It recognizes that humans, with their cultural diversity, are an integral component of many ecosystems.

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; Convention on Biological Diversity, COP 5 Decision V/6, 2020.

The ability of an ecosystem to support and maintain ecological processes and a diverse community of organisms. It is measured as the degree to which a diverse community of native organisms is maintained, and is used as a proxy for ecological resilience, intended as the capacity of an ecosystem to adapt in the face of stressors, while maintaining the functions of interest. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; Ocean Health Index.

The benefits people obtain from ecosystems. According to the original formulation of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005), ecosystem services are divided into supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural. While supporting services are elementary from an ecological perspective, CICES, a more recent accounting framework recognises only the latter three categories to avoid double counting. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; CICES, Version 5.1, 2018. 

Extinction is the death of all members of a species of plants, animals, or other organisms. A species has gone extinct when all its individuals have died. A species may go extinct locally (population extinction) or globally (species extinction). 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; the authoritative 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. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; IUCN Red List, 2012b; Smithsonian, accessed 26/02/2026. 

Resources (e.g., plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals, etc.) that combine to yield a flow of benefits (i.e., ecosystem services) to people. Within the IPBES conceptual framework, it represents an economic-utilitarian perspective on nature, specifically those aspects of nature that people use (or anticipate using) as a source of nature’s contributions to people (NCP). 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; UNDP, 2016b. 

Nature conservation is the act of protecting species from extinction, maintaining and restoring habitats, enhancing ecosystem services, and protecting biological diversity. Specific goals include conserving habitats, preventing deforestation, maintaining soil organic matter, halting species extinction, reducing overfishing, and mitigating climate change. 

Source: Newman JA, Varner G, Linquist S. Defending Biodiversity. In: Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics. Cambridge University Press; 2017.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) 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. 

Actions inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience. Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions. Nature-based solutions must therefore benefit biodiversity and support the delivery of a range of ecosystem services. (EU) 

Actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services, resilience and biodiversity benefits. (UNEA) 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary (Cohen-Shacham, 2016); EU Nature-based Solutions: 2022; UNEA resolution 5/5.

NCPs are the contributions (both positive and negative) of living nature to people’s quality of life. As such, NCPs refer to “all contributions–beneficial and detrimental–that people, individually or collectively at various scales, derive or endure from nature. 

Source: IPBES, Secretariat, Note by Multidisciplinary Expert Panel, Díaz et al., 2018.

Patterns of biodiversity degradation are entrenched in societal values and behaviours and can only be tackled via transformative change: i.e., fundamental, system-wide reorganisation across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.  

Source: EU policies addressing indirect drivers of biodiversity loss.

A concept that nature and natural things have a value in and of themselves, independent of any benefits they may have for human beings. A philosophy which affirms the intrinsic value of the ecosystem, and of each one of its constituents. Biocentrism refers to a philosophy which claims the primordial value of life as a value in and of itself outside of benefits to humans. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary. 

Values of nature entities and other-than-human beings important as means to achieve human ends or satisfy human preferences (in principle replaceable, albeit not always in practice), often associated with the notion of ecosystem services. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; Himes et al., (2024) Why nature matters: A systemic review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values.

Values of entities expressed independently of any reference to people as valuers including values associated with entities worth protecting as ends in and of themselves. This concept refers to inherent value, i.e., the value something has independent of any human experience or evaluation. Such value is viewed as an inherent property of the entity (e.g., animal, plant, habitat, etc.) and not ascribed or generated by external valuing agents, i.e., humans. As a value centred on something other than human beings, it may also be called a non-anthropocentric value. 

Source: IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary; Himes et al., (2024) Why nature matters: A systemic review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values.

Values of meaningful and often reciprocal human relationships—beyond means to an end—with nature (often specified as a particular landscape, place, species, forest, etc.) and among people through nature. The values that contribute to desirable relationships, such as those among people or societies, and between people and nature, as in Living in harmony with nature. 

Source: Himes et al., (2024) Why nature matters: A systemic review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values; IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Report, Glossary.