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A
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Biosphere reserves
were set up to help Mankind meet one of the most difficult
challenges it is facing at the dawn of the new millennium:
how to satisfy the rapidly growing population of the world's
desire and need for economic development while preserving
the diversity of animal and plant species, ecosystems
and landscapes.
In 1968, UNESCO organised the first intergovernmental
conference on the problem of the preservation and rational
use of our biosphere's resources. The scientific program,
Man and the Biosphere (MAB) was set up in response to
issues raised at the conference. Launched by UNESCO in
1971, MAB's aim is to better understand the relationship
between Man and his Environment and to reconcile apparently
contradictory objectives: maintaining biodiversity while
ensuring economic and social development for all the peoples
concerned. These were new concepts that have since been
widely adopted, in particular by the 1992 UN Conference
on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.
The Conference led to the International Convention on
Biological Diversity in 1993, since ratified by a number
of states.
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| Occupy the land, live there, improve our standard of living. |
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| …while preserving
the beauty and variety of our natural heritage |
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Reconciling the preservation of biodiversity, and what
today is called sustainable development on a world-wide
level will prove an exacting challenge. In implementing
the MAB Program it quickly became clear that demonstration
sites should be established in a range of different geographical,
ecological and human situations, with a type of local
human development implemented that respects the natural
resources available or is based on resources that are
duly preserved. Biosphere reserves were thus created in
1974 as territories in which sustainable development could
be tested.
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Challenge 