Biosphere Reserves -a Powerful Method for Local Transition?

In July 4-8:th, there will be a conference on biosphere reserves in the small village Lundsbrunn, Sweden. Participants from Europe, Russia, North America and Nigeria will meet to further develop the "Man and the Biosphere" (MAB) program. Ecoprofile will co-operate with the conference by communication what biosphere reserves are, and by reporting from the conference. Today we give a brief introduction to the concept of biosphere reserves.

The UNESCO MAB programme was formed in 1971, long before terms like sustainable development, Agenda 21 or Transition Towns were invented. This year, the MAB programme celebrate its 40:th anniversary. From the beginning the outlook was strictly scientific. Researchers wanted to find ways to solve environmental problems that had been identified and wanted limited geographic areas to investigate the connections between man and the biosphere. Yet today the outlook is scientific, but there are also ambitions to really contribute to local transition through developed methods for cooperation.

The guiding lights for the programmes are said to be co-operation between actors on different levels of society, that the initiative for forming biosphere reserves should come from local and regional actors and that biodiversity is a part of sustainable development. Today, there are more than 500 biosphere reserves worldwide.

In later articles I will briefly present the Swedish biosphere reserves and the coming conferences. I will also report from the conference, and hopefully other conference participants will contribute here too.

I would like to recommend you to visit the conference web site and consider if you should participate! The final registration date is June 9:th. Registration and programme can be found here:
www.euromab2011.se

MAB programme history:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/ecological-sciences/man-and-biosphere-programme/mab40/