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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 12, NUMBER 3, MARCH 1999

GCC ONLINE...
An Occasional Column of Online Resources
Ecological-Research Information Resources

Item #d99mar45

Quantifying the inventories of the world’s biological resources is very difficult. The effort requires multidisciplinary expertise, dedicated administrative support and sponsorship, and international cooperation. Measuring the biological inventories of the world’s ecosystems and the environmental and ecological impacts of human activities and natural phenomena on those resources is the basic function of the Man in the Biosphere (MAB) program, which has a website at http://www.mabnetamericas.org/home2.html.

MAB was created by the 1968 UNESCO Conference on the Conservation and Rational Use of the Biosphere, which was the first major intergovernmental meeting to examine the issues of conserving biodiversity, promoting economic and social development, and maintaining associated cultural values. Biosphere reserves are an international network of experimental sites for the basic research and testing necessary to examine those often conflicting issues. The name "biosphere reserve" was chosen in the early 1970s to identify these special, experimental sites.

The core of MAB activities is a global network of biosphere reserves, areas of terrestrial and coastal ecosystems operating on the behest of UNESCO's Person and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme. Each reserve has been nominated by its national government, has met a minimal set of criteria for operation, and has pledged to adhere to a minimal set of conditions. The reserves fulfill three functions:

• a conservation function: to contribute to the conservation of landscapes, ecosystems, species and genetic variation;
• a development function: to foster economic and human development that is socioculturally and ecologically sustainable; and
• a logistic function: to provide support for research, monitoring, education, and information exchange related to local, national, and global issues of conservation and development.

Managers from biosphere reserves, representatives of conservation groups, and scholars met in 1995 in Seville, Spain, to establish a framework for science and conservation cooperation. Among the documents they produced were The Seville Strategy for Biosphere Reserves (which can be found at http://www.mabnetamericas.org/publications/seville/seville.html) and the Statutory Framework for the World Network of Biosphere Reserves (which can be found at http://www.mabnetamericas.org/publications/framewk.html). Because no treaty or international law governs the forming and operation of the biosphere reserves, the introduction of the Statutory Framework addresses many of the operational procedures for the reserves, beginning with the critical acknowledgment of sovereignty:

"Biosphere Reserves, each of which remains under the sole sovereignty of the State where it is situated and thereby submitted to State legislation only, form a world network in which participation by States is voluntary."

This was also recognized by the Congressional Research Service 1996 and 1997 Reports for Congress, "Biosphere Reserves: Fact Sheet."

Biosphere Reserves meet the most challenging issues that we face: conserve the diversity of plants, animals, and microorganisms that make up our biosphere; maintain healthy natural systems while, at the same time, meeting the material needs and aspirations of an increasing number of people; and conserve biological resources with their sustainable use. Today, there are four basic groupings within MAB:

AfriNet Biosphere Reserve Network (39 reserves in 22 countries)
http://www.mabnetamericas.org/afrinet/home.html

East Asia Biosphere Reserve Network (47 reserves in 10 countries)
http://www.mabnetamericas.org/eabrnet/home.html

EuroMAB (167 reserves in 34 countries)
http://www.mabnetamericas.org/euromab/home.html

MABNet Americas (102 reserves in 17 countries)
http://www.mabnetamericas.org/mabnet/home.html

The U.S. component of MABNet Americas and its associated programs, both national and international, will be the topic of next month’s GCC Online.