The UN cultural agency commemorated on Monday the 50th anniversary of its Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB), which created in 1971, has been promoting a long-lasting connection between people and nature.
“This is really a programme for the people, because people are part of nature…so they are incorporated in nature protection but also in sustainable use of natural resources”, said Miguel Clusener Godt, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) MAB Programme Secretary.
Today 727 biosphere reserves integrate nature conservation and sustainable development in 131 countries, including 22 transboundary sites.
In Africa there are 86 sites in 31 countries; Arab States, 35 sites in 14 countries; Asia and the Pacific, 168 sites in 40 countries; Europe and North America 306 sites in 24 countries; and 132 sites in 24 Latin American and the Caribbean countries.
If bioreserves worldwide were to be put together, Mr. Godt said that they would be equivalent to about five per cent of the world’s surface, spanning 6,812,000 km² or “around the size of Australia”.
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