Definitions
Biodiversity: the diversity
(number of different types) of organisms present in an ecosystem.
Healthy ecosystems usually have higher biodiversity.
Ecology: The
scientific study of the interrelationships going on in the
environment. Ecologists sometimes recommend what ought to be done
to achieve a particular goal, but their concern is with what is
happening, not with what human beings choose to do about it. They
don't set the goals.
Ecosystem: All the
organisms in a
particular region and the environment in which they live. The elements
of an ecosystem interact with each other in some way, and so depend on
each other either directly or indirectly. (source)
This is a term used by ecologists.
Environment: both the
natural land, plants, animals, and climate and
what humans have done. Scientists use this term to describe the
conditions in a particular place, but historians use it more broadly to
mean the ecosystem plus the land and climate plus how it has been
modified by humans.
Environmentalism:
A political movement concerned with protecting and improving the
environment. Environmentalists push for particular ideas about
what the goals should be.
Environmental policy:
What the government decides to do to modify human impacts on the
environment. This is a political process by which goals are set,
but it is influenced by public opinion.
Indigenous:
originating or occurring naturally in that place. For people it
is used for the people who were there when Europeans arrived, even
though they had earlier spread from somewhere else.
Nature: different
people use this word with different meanings.
Wilderness: The
Wilderness Act of 1964 defined wilderness as an area of undeveloped
land that appears “to have been affected primarily by the forces of
nature, with the imprints of mans’ work substantially unnoticeable” (source)