According to a UNESCO press release on 10 July 2003, Fifteen new sites in 10 countries have been added to UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves, including the first members of the network in Slovenia and Yemen. Three extensions to existing biosphere reserves have also been approved, reflecting on-going efforts to improve existing sites, illustrating the vitality of the network. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves now consists of 440 sites in 97 countries. The new biosphere reserves and extensions were approved by the Bureau of the International Co-ordinating Council of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme at its meeting on July 8-11 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
Biosphere Reserves are pilot sites, which perform three complementary functions: biodiversity conservation; development (integrating local communities) and logistic support (combining research, education, training and monitoring).
One of the new sites is Yading (Tib: Nyiting,Daba Dzong) in Eastern Tibet in present-day Sichuan province of the People’s Republic of China. The UNESCO press statement described the region as a “part of the eastern extension of the Tibetan plateau ranging from 2,200m to 6,032m and comprises three sacred mountains. The area is not only noted for its high biological diversity, but also for its associated cultural values.”
According to the UNESCO press release, the World Network of Biosphere Reserves is the main operational tool of the MAB Programme. Biosphere reserves are sites nominated by countries where the interdisciplinary MAB approach can be applied in actual situations. They also serve as sites for exploring and demonstrating approaches to sustainable development. The global network that they constitute covers a representative – and growing – sample of the major ecological regions and human use systems of the earth. The biosphere reserves approved this year demonstrate an increasing interest in using the biosphere reserve approach to reconcile conservation and development in coastal areas and archipelagoes, and in protecting cultural values dependant on the maintenance of certain traditional uses. There is also an increasing interest in transboundary biosphere reserves, which straddle national boundaries, as frameworks for joint efforts to manage and conserve shared ecosystems.
