Threats to ecosystems: They are elements favored or induced by humans (deforestation, pollution, messy urbanism, etc.) or natural disasters (floods, landslides, etc.), which by their intensity and frequency jeopardize or damage ecosystems being much of them of irreversible damage or high complexity to reverse them.

Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources:  The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources, it implies compliance with the following assumptions:

Co-participation: It refers where participation is effective and real, in which occurs an equal and fair exchange, in which decisions are agreed commitments and assessing the needs and demands of all involved. The co-participation contrasts with the "participation" given in one way, where some serve others.

Hydrographic basin: The space defined by the union of the main tributaries of a river or the territory drained by a single natural drainage system. A watershed is defined by the line of summits, also called diving of waters. One way to regulate and manage the use of natural resources by separating the Hydrographic basin areas, where water is the main object of conservation.

 

Environmental Culture: Environmental culture, understood as the attitude and action that can care for and preserve the environment. It has to do with the appropriation and permanent implementation of knowledge, values, skills and actions, evidently affecting recovery and stay of a healthy environment.

 

Ecosystem: Dynamic complex of plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms communities and their physical environment interacting as a functional unit.

 

Environmental education: Environmental education is the education effort oriented to teach the way the natural environments work, particularly regarding the way human beings can take care of ecosystems to live sustainably. It involves information recompilation, knowledge, values and attitudes that are fundamental tools with which to positively act to understand and act on environmental issues.

 

Gender equity: is the ability to be fair, just and right in the equal treatment of women and men, according to their respective needs. Gender equity refers to justice needed to provide access, control and benefits of natural resources to women and men.

 

Exotic species: species of flora, fauna or microorganism whose natural area of geographic dispersion does not correspond to the national territory and is in the country as a result of human activities, intentionally or not, as well as the activity of the species itself.

 

Invasive species: Invasive species are plants or other animals and organisms transported and introduced by humans in places outside their natural range and have established and dispersed in the new region, which are harmful. An invasive species that is harmful, it means that produces important changes in the composition, structure and processes of natural ecosystems or intervened, putting the native biodiversity at risk.

 

Vulnerable species: All species of flora and fauna (terrestrial or aquatic), which diminished their habitats, reduced its population, disrupted the natural distribution of the species at risk or their disappearance.

 

Shared management: Refers to the agreements between the state and community organizations, institutions or private groups for joint participation in the protection, management and sustainable management of natural resources.

 

Community Management: Understood as actions that promote and support the participation of groups from communities surrounding ASP´s, in processes of environmental education, local organization, environmental services, and sustainable production, among others.

Corporate image: It is the essence of the organization, intentional base of the image the institution wants to project in their different audiences. It is shaped by history, corporate project, values and attributes of the organization.

Institutional Image: It is the perception or idea that different public have about the institution. Three factors that influence it are: visual identity (signs representing the essence of the organization: colors, isotype, font and name), organizational culture (ie their methods of operation) and the institutional project (its objectives and services provided).

Models of governance: The governance is the way a group decides to choose their form of government (construction, mechanisms, procedures, regulations), it applies equally to a local organization, a network of organizations or institutions. But the concept of governance implicit involves a number of conditions or assumptions, called "good governance" or "governance models", including social inclusion, equal participation and mechanisms and forums for accountability, among others.

 

Land Use Planning: It is a policy that regulates the use of territory, defining the possible and potential uses for the various areas in which it has been divided the territory (eg urban, recreation, protection of natural resources, risk areas. production, industrial, etc.). The LUP is an instrument that is part of the paradigm of sustainable development.

 

Decentralized body: Body of Public Administration to which it has been transferred by legal statute, concrete and specific skills to be executed in exclusive and independent way of its controlling authority, resulting in a loss of competition by the superior of that body as to the subject decentralized and holding in its entirety in the not decentralized matter. Decentralization is the transfer of power and decision making into an organization peripheral divisions. It supposed to transfer power from a central government towards authorities that are not hierarchically subordinate.

 

Payment for environmental services: Program Payment for Environmental Services (PSA - Programa de Pago por Servicios Ambientales) is a financial recognition by the State, through FONAFIFO, to the owners and administrators of forests and forest plantations for environment services they provide. In accordance with the Forestry Law No. 7575, Costa Rica recognizes environmental services, such as emissions mitigation of greenhouse gases, protection of water for urban, rural or hydroelectric use, protection of biodiversity for conservation and sustainable use, scientific and pharmaceutical research and breeding, protection of ecosystems and life forms also the natural scenic beauty for tourism and scientific purposes.

Ecological representativeness: This refers to the degree to which a system or network of protected areas does include within itself a full and balanced set of samples of the highest quality, corresponding to the full range of types of environments and existing natural features in a country or a region. It is one of the requirements for a protected area system to be functional and effective.

 

Automated System: Set of processes, procedures, and activities related each other, operating under technological tools with little or minimal human intervention tasks.

 

Internal Control System: A set of actions, tasks and activities undertaken by the Administration to reasonably ensure compliance with its objectives.

 

Systematize: Process of collecting, organizing, analyzing and documenting information, it is mainly responsible for identifying and highlighting the lessons learned of a plan, program, project, etc.

 

Hydrological systems: It consists of a set of parts or components that fulfill different functions, simultaneously or successively, the end result is to obtain adequate distribution of water to enable the life and production of plants, animals and people.

 

Risk assessment system: A set of actions, tasks and activities that the Administration aimed at the identification, analysis, evaluation, management, review, documentation and communication of the most important risks to which is exposed the Administration to achieve its objective.