UNESCO Adds New Biosphere Reserves

ENVIRONMENT

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit, including a link to today’s MapMaker Interactive map.

Discussion Ideas

UNESCO recently added new sites to its network of 669 biosphere reserves. What is UNESCO? Take a look at our short encyclopedic entry for some help.
- UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO’s mission statement is “to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development, and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication, and information.”
  - UNESCO’s programs are divided into five major sectors: Education; Natural Sciences; Social and Human Sciences; Culture; and Communications and Information.
  - UNESCO focuses its programs on two global priorities: Africa and gender equality.

What is the biosphere? Take a look through our short encyclopedic entry for some help.
- The biosphere is nothing less than the zone of all life on Earth, a collection of every known ecosystem on the planet. Although hardy organisms thrive in our planet’s harshest highs and lows, the bulk of the biosphere exists between about 500 meters (1,640 feet) below the ocean’s surface to about 6 kilometers (3.75 miles) above sea level.

What is a biosphere reserve?
- UNESCO biosphere reserves are part of the organization’s Man and the Biosphere Programme. As the name “Man and the Biosphere” indicates, the program focuses on sustainable development—human construction, growth, and consumption that can be maintained with minimal damage to the natural environment.
- Biosphere reserves are “areas comprising terrestrial, marine, and coastal ecosystems. Each reserve promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.”

According to our encyclopedic entry, UNESCO organizes its 193 member countries into five regional groups: Africa; Arab states; Asia and the Pacific; Europe and North America; and Latin America. Take a look at the map at the top of this entry. What regional groups have the most established biosphere reserves?
- Europe and North America boast the largest number of biosphere reserves, at 297. This region also has the most number of participating countries, at 36.
  - Asia and the Pacific has the second-largest number of biosphere reserves, while Africa has the second-largest number of participating countries.
  - Why do you think the developed economies of Europe and North America have the most biosphere reserves?

Take a nice long look at the UNESCO map, and investigate the 20 new biosphere reserves in our MapMaker Interactive. In which biosphere reserve would you conduct a bioblitz? Click here for a quick “Do-It-Yourself Bioblitz” video. Think about these factors when making your decision:
- What time of year would you collect data? Why?
- What tools would you take to record your data—cameras? smartphones? pencil-and-paper?
- What type of scientists would you recruit for your bioblitz—marine biologists? botanists? historians?
- What organisms would you hope to see—plants? animals? fungi?

TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT