Glossary
Here you can find definitions and background information on several of the key terms used throughout our website.
Regenerative: As opposed to "sustainable," which defines a system that merely remains constant over a period of time, "regenerative" refers to continuously renewing systems that create synergies to propel growth and complexity. In other words, a regenerative system basically takes care of itself with minimal human intervention.
Regenerative Agriculture (or Farming): A broad term encompassing farming systems that strive to create ecosystem-enhancing cycles. In contrast to organic farming which is defined by the absence of chemical inputs, regenerative agriculture is defined by its ability to enhance soil fertility, carbon drawdown, healthy water cycles, biodiversity, and nutrient density.
While regenerative agriculture is a modern concept, it has deep roots in the traditional agroecology practiced by indigenous and peasant farmers around the world.
Agroforestry: A type of regenerative agriculture system where people design and plant multilayered gardens that mimic a natural forest in structure, succession, and complexity. In contrast to a one-dimensional farm where all of the crops exist on one level, an agroforestry farm employs a diversity of trees, shrubs, vines, ground hugging plants, and roots to produce a variety of useful yields including food, animal fodder, mulch, natural fibers, and building material.
Each plant in an agroforestry system is chosen for a specific purpose based on relationships observed in nature. For example, traditional cacao agroforestry systems employ tall banana plants to shade and shelter shorter cacao trees, which in turn shade and shelter smaller plants like turmeric. Inga trees serve to fix nitrogen in the soil and provide support for vining crops like chayote. Inter-relationships between plants, animals, insects and microbes create synergies which sustain the system without external inputs.
Extractive: Not a type of agriculture, but a term often used to describe a method like industrial agriculture that "takes" from soil by killing off microbe populations and collapsing structure and doesn't have a sustainable way to replenish what it takes.
The Green Revolution in Latin America: The ironically misnomered “Green Revolution” is the global agenda of the agribusiness consortium, led by Monsanto/Bayer, to promote the use of chemical pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and patented genetically modified seeds in all sectors of agriculture. Now a 300 billion dollar per year industry, the Green Revolution began with the 1950s post-war oil boom when scientists hit on a way to combine petroleum byproducts with the biologically destructive chemicals (e.g. napalm, Zyklon-B) formulated during WWII to create glyphosate, dicamba, and 2-4-D. By the 1970s, the agrochemical industry was selling their products — with the support of government subsidies — throughout the agrarian global south and promoting their use via sponsored agronomy training programs targeting mainly farmers in the export sector. Over the past fifty years, agrochemical use has become so widespread it is easy to find and purchase even the most hazardous pesticides in agricultural supply stores throughout Latin America.
Food Sovereignty: The Ecuador Constitution defines food sovereignty thus:
Individuals and communities have the right to safe and permanent access to healthy, sufficient and nutritious food, preferably produced locally and in accordance with their different identities and cultural traditions.
Food sovereignty is a strategic objective and an obligation of the State to guarantee that individuals, communities, towns and nationalities achieve permanent self-sufficiency with foods that are healthy and culturally appropriate.
Additionally, food sovereignty is fundamental to Sumak Kawsay, or good living, an indigenous way of life grounded in the construction of social systems that are based on the reciprocity between humans and nature.
Agrobiodiversity: the diversity of species used in food systems.
Since the 1900s, 75 percent of the world’s plant genetic diversity has been lost. Farmers worldwide have increasingly abandoned traditional crops in favor of more genetically uniform, higher-yield varieties. This disturbing trend toward the intensive production of select crops—growing for yield instead of nutrition—has come at a cost. Global biodiversity is threatened. People across the globe now face malnourishment and the impacts of diet-related diseases.
Growing for greater agrobiodiversity provides benefits for people and the environment. Cultivating agrobiodiversity can improve local economies and environmental health. Communities that invest in agrobiodiversity reap the benefits of value-added goods, women empowerment, and increased local autonomy.
Agrobiodiversity can also improve soil health, increase climate resilience, and restore ecosystems.
Source: https://www.thelexicon.org/reawakened/about/
Biodiversity Hotspot: To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, an area must meet two strict criteria:
Contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants found nowhere else on Earth (known as "endemic" species).
Have lost at least 70 percent of its primary native vegetation.
https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/hotspots-defined
Around the world, 36 areas qualify as hotspots. Their intact habitats represent just 2.5 percent of Earth’s land surface, but they support more than half of the world’s plant species as endemics — i.e., species found no place else — and nearly 43 percent of bird, mammal, reptile and amphibian species as endemics.
Biodiversity underpins all life on Earth. Without species, there would be no air to breathe, no food to eat, no water to drink. There would be no human society at all. And as the places on Earth where the most biodiversity is under the most threat, hotspots are critical to human survival.
Cloud Forest: Also called montane rainforest; vegetation of tropical mountainous regions in which rainfall is often heavy and condensation is persistent because of the cooling of moisture-laden air currents deflected upward by the mountains. Cloud forests typically are found at altitudes between 1,000 and 2,500 meters (3,000 and 8,000 feet), and a layer of clouds at the canopy level is common year-round. Because of sensitivity to local climatic conditions, elevation, and distance from the sea, cloud forest ecosystems are not common globally. They are found in Central and South America, southern Mexico and parts of the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, eastern Africa, and New Guinea. In 2022 only an estimated 1 percent of global woodlands were cloud forests, compared with 11 percent in the 1970s—a decline due to global warming, deforestation, and other conditions related to human activities.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/science/cloud-forest-ecology