Protected Areas & What is Biosphere Reserve?
Protected Areas & WildLife
Biodiversity Hotspots
A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in The Environmentalist in 1988.
Around the world, 36 areas qualify as hotspots. Their intact habitats represent just 2.5% of Earth’s land surface, but they support more than half of the world’s plant species as endemics — i.e., species found no place else — and nearly 43% of bird, mammal, reptile and amphibian species as endemics.
To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, a region must meet two strict criteria:
- It must have at least 1,500 vascular plants as endemics — which is to say, it must have a high percentage of plant life found nowhere else on the planet. A hotspot, in other words, is irreplaceable.
- It must have 30% or less of its original natural vegetation. In other words, it must be threatened.
Biodiversity Hotspots In India
Himalaya
Includes the entire Indian Himalayan region (and that falling in Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar)
Indo-Burma
Includes entire North-eastern India, except Assam and Andaman group of Islands (and Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China)
Sundalands
Includes Nicobar group of Islands (and Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines)
Western Ghats and Sri Lanka
Includes entire Western Ghats (and Sri Lanka)
What is Biosphere Reserve?
- Biosphere reserves are ‘learning places for sustainable development’.
- They are sites for testing interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing changes and interactions between social and ecological systems, including conflict prevention and management of biodiversity.
- They are places that provide local solutions to global challenges. Biosphere reserves include terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems.
- Each site promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.
Biosphere Reserves involve local communities and all interested stakeholders in planning and management. They integrate three main “functions”:
- Conservation of biodiversity and cultural diversity
- Economic development that is socio-culturally and environmentally sustainable
- Logistic support, underpinning development through research, monitoring, education and training
These three functions are pursued through the Biosphere Reserves’ three main zones
Core Areas
It comprises a strictly protected zone that contributes to the conservation of landscapes, ecosystems, species and genetic variation
Buffer Zones
It surrounds or adjoins the core area(s), and is used for activities compatible with sound ecological practices that can reinforce scientific research, monitoring, training and education.
Transition Area
The transition area is where communities foster socio-culturally and ecologically sustainable economic and human activities.
Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme (UNESCO)
- The MAB Programme is an intergovernmental scientific programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments. It combines the natural and social sciences with a view to improving human livelihoods and safeguarding natural and managed ecosystems, thus promoting innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate and environmentally sustainable.
- The World Network of Biosphere Reserves currently counts 738 sites in 134 countries all over the world, including 22 transboundary sites.
Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme (UNESCO)
- The MAB Programme is an intergovernmental scientific programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments. It combines the natural and social sciences with a view to improving human livelihoods and safeguarding natural and managed ecosystems, thus promoting innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate and environmentally sustainable.
- Biosphere reserves are nominated by national governments and remain under the sovereign jurisdiction of the states where they are located. Biosphere Reserves are designated under the intergovernmental MAB Programme by the Director-General of UNESCO following the decisions of the MAB International Coordinating Council (MAB ICC). Their status is internationally recognized.
- The World Network of Biosphere Reserves currently counts 738 sites in 134 countries all over the world, including 22 transboundary sites.
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