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Meeting future needs
Ecosystem functions
Conservation and Preservation
Natural Resource Management
Problems
100
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
What is sustainable development (p. 12)
100
Competition between members of the same species for limited resources such as food, water, or space.
What is Intraspecific Competition (p. 67)
100
Canadian legislation passed in 2002 that mandates the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada to maintain lists of species at risk and to recommend to the minister responsible that particular species be given special protection in their environment.
What is What is the Species at Risk Act (SARA) (p.499)
100
Identification of inputs, outputs, and potential environmental impacts of a product or service throughout its lifetime, from manufacture to use and ultimate disposal.
What are Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) (p. 547)
100
Buildup of chemical elements or substances in organisms in successively higher trophic levels.
What is Biomagnification (p. 351)
200
Voluntary agreements between extractive industries and communities that go beyond formal impact assessment requirements and are intended to facilitate extraction of resources in a way that contributes to the economic and social well-being of local people and communities.
What are Impact and benefit agreements (IBAs) (pp. 413, 419)
200
The natural process of nutrient enrichment of water bodies over time that leads to greater productivity. It can lead to excessive plant growth, oxygen depletion, and can result in changes to fish species composition in water bodies.
What is Eutrophication (p.134)
200
Underwater reserves set aside and protected from normal human exploitation because of the fragility, rarity, or valued biodiversity of their ecosystems.
What are Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) (p. 252)
200
A concept recognizing that, because significant amounts of water are required to grow some foodstuffs, nations can reduce pressure on their water resources by importing such products, allowing use of water for other, higher-value products.
What is Virtual Water (p.391)
200
The division of an ecosystem or species habitat into small parcels as a result of human activity, such as agriculture, highways, pipelines, and population settlements.
What is Fragmentation (p. 491)
300
The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, colour, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.
What is Environmental Justice (p. 168)
300
The colonization of a previously unvegetated surface, where little or no soil exists (such as when a glacier retreats and removes all traces of the vegetation and soil).
What is Primary Succession (p. 83)
300
A guideline stating that when there is a possibility of serious or irreversible environmental damage resulting from a course of action, such as a development project, lack of scientific certainty is not an acceptable reason for postponing a measure to prevent environmental degradation or for assuming that damage in the future can be rectified by some kind of technological fix. Decision-makers should err on the side of caution.
What is the Precautionary Principle (p. 180)
300
Perspective that is based on the assumption that humankind is able to understand, control, and manipulate nature to suit its purposes and that nature and other living and non-living things exist to meet human needs and wants.
What is a technocentric or anthropocentric perspective (p.164)
300
Sources of pollution from which pollutants are discharged over a widespread area, or from a number of small inputs, rather than from a single distinct identifiable source.
What are non-point sources (p. 137)
400
Agricultural designs, such as urban farming and organic farming, based on ecological relationships with the fundamental principle of minimizing wasted energy and with the wastes of one component becoming the inputs for another.
What is Permaculture (p. 360)
400
The combination of physical, chemical, and biological conditions necessary for the growth of a given species.
What is a Niche (p. 67)
400
Holistic management that takes into account the entire ecosystem and emphasizes biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, as opposed to focusing primarily or solely on a resource or resources, such as water or timber, within an ecosystem.
What is Ecosystem-based management (EBM) (p. 312)
400
Development in plant genetics (hybridization) in the late 1950s and early 1960s resulting in high-yield varieties producing three to five times more grain than previous plants but requiring intensive irrigation and fertilizer use.
What is the Green Revolution (p. 328)
400
A phrase used to describe local people’s reactions when a noxious or undesired facility, for example, a landfill site, a sand and gravel pit, or an expressway, is proposed in an area adjacent to or near their property.
What is NIMBY (“Not in my backyard”) (p. 440)
500
An index that attempts to provide a perspective on human well-being and environmental impact and to focus on achieving sustainability. The value of this index for each country is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and ecological footprint per capita—it approximates multiplying life satisfaction and life expectancy and dividing that by the ecological footprint. (p. 533)
What is the Happy planet index (HPI) (p. 390)
500
A warming of the Earth’s atmosphere caused by the presence of certain gases (e.g., water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane) that absorb radiation emitted by the Earth, thereby retarding the loss of energy to space.
What is the Greenhouse Effect (p. 203)
500
Activities undertaken by humans towards caring for the Earth.
What is Stewardship (p. 492)
500
The amount, in tonnage, of a particular aquatic species that the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, for example, determines can be landed within a particular fishery in a given year.
What is the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) (p. 266)
500
Increased temperatures in core urban areas relative to surrounding areas resulting from heat absorbed and radiated from the built environment (e.g., buildings, roads). It is not uncommon for the temperature of city centres to be from 2°C to 6°C higher than that of nearby rural areas.
What is an urban heat island (p. 451)