Conservation debates often stall on vocabulary. Colcom Foundation tackles that problem head-on with a short glossary of terms that appear throughout its work. Two of the definitions come from the Global Footprint Network, an organization that publishes biocapacity and ecological overshoot data.

Measuring Human Demand

The first is the ecological footprint. The Foundation quotes the Global Footprint Network, which defines it as “a measure of how much area of biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates, using prevailing technology and resource management practices.”

Closely related is biocapacity overshoot. Per the Global Footprint Network, this is “an ecological deficit that occurs when a population’s ecological footprint exceeds the biocapacity of the area available to that population.” When that happens, the gap has to be covered by drawing down natural assets or releasing carbon waste into the atmosphere.

Efficiency and Land Protection

The Jevons paradox, also called the rebound effect, is central to Colcom Foundation’s outlook. First described by William Stanley Jevons in 1865, it holds that using a resource more efficiently tends to raise total consumption, since efficiency lowers the effective cost and expands demand. U.S. figures illustrate it: from 1970 to 2021, per capita CO2 emissions fell 35%, but population grew 62% and total emissions rose 15%.

Finally, the glossary covers the conservation easement, a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust or government agency. The agreement permanently restricts specified uses of the land to protect its conservation, scenic, or agricultural values. Colcom Foundation lists conservation easements among the causes it supports.

These terms help explain the Colcom Foundation’s grantmaking. Footprint and overshoot describe the problem. The Jevons paradox explains why efficiency alone has not solved it. Easements offer one durable tool for protecting land, and Colcom Foundation funds them alongside land acquisition, restoration, and public education on population growth. Together, the definitions give readers a shared starting point. See related link for additional information.

Find more information about Colcom Foundation on https://gwpa.org/redhen/org/347