NT-2024-AR - Flipbook - Page 68
APPENDIX
Glossary of Terms
The following terms and definitions are meant to be understood
in the context of Nia Tero’s work and mission and are not meant
to present a position on their definition outside of this context.
Agency: The rights and capacity of Indigenous Peoples living in a territory to speak for
themselves and make their own self-determined choices. This includes representation,
economic well-being, development and governance.
Biocultural Approaches to Monitoring: Monitoring approaches that explicitly start
with cultural perspectives connected to territory – encompassing (place-based) values,
knowledge, relationships and needs – and that recognize mutual interdependence between
ecological state and human well-being. They measure the things that matter to the people
who hold the territory in question.
Co-responsibility: An obligation or a commitment to achieve common outcomes shared
among the people living in a territory, their partners and Nia Tero, and that is clearly defined
in a shared commitment.
Cultural Continuity: A dynamic process of upholding and reactivating relationships, values,
and spirituality – an Indigenous way of being – in a rapidly changing world. It is both the
way and age-specific responsibility to receive, generate/process and transmit traditional
knowledge, wisdom and practices from generation to generation through families, kinship
structures and life-asserting connections to the place and ancestral memory. It is a
determining factor of Indigenous identity and self-determination as a distinct people.
Engagement: The act of approaching Indigenous Peoples managing territories identified
by Nia Tero. It involves requesting permission to visit their territories, spending time with
them in their territories, sharing Nia Tero’s mission and priorities, and learning about their
governance structure, vision of the future, priorities, and challenges.
Financial Sustainability: The long-term condition of having financial means available to
enable people to secure the guardianship of their territories.
Governance: The ability of Indigenous Peoples to define and maintain clear mechanisms,
processes, and rules that guide decision-making and the implementation of a self-determined
vision of well-being that secures cultural continuity and the health of the ecosystems they
depend on. This concept recognizes long-standing customary governance mechanisms.
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