Date: 10-22 July. Location: Baia Mare, Romania
History The idea of Biosphere Reserves (BR) was elaborated and came into being in 1974 at the suggestion of the planning group of the Man and Biosphere (MaB ) programme of the UNESCO. The reason was that the MaB co-ordinating council in trying to define objectives for its own programme in 1971came to the conclusion that in order to promote conservation of natural areas and the genetic material they contain it was essential to establish a network of BRs where importance of the biological capital and its value for the process of development could be demonstrated. The allocation of BRs started in 1976 and its number quickly grew and now stands at 368 reserves in 91 countries. To establish a network of BRs was very important in order to achieve the objectives of providing for our socioeconomic necessities in a sustainable way and not in conflict with biol., cultural and environmental imperatives . BRs are small natural locations where on a small scale we try to practise how these objectives can be achieved and learn how to fulfil them on the large planetary scale . An important characteristic of BRs has to be its flexibility according to the local, regional and national considerations : BRs as natural parks, national reserves, world patrimony or as RAMSAR sites . Philosophy Establishment of BRs follows the philosophy associated to the central idea that there is a very close link between the care of the environment, conservation of biol. resources and the process of socioeconomic development. This philosophy is based on the fact that nature conservation requires that humankind have a comfortable standard of living and possesses a certain level of education and culture to ensure that they do not have to resort to destruction of nature and its resources. In other words nature conservation is an indispensable component of the process of dev. and ignoring this fact will make all our efforts useless. Objectives - Conservation of biol. resources and maintenance of biol. diversity ( biodiversity). - Sustainable use of these resources via regeneration and recycling. Enough time has to be allowed between harvests so that natural temporal cycles have enough time to act upon waste material and their absorption for recovery. - Just distribution of economic benefits so that econ. Equality and social equity are achieved. - Investigation: in order to learn from biol. processes that function so well for maintenance of nature’s economy: Importance of interdisciplinary education & investigation: Bioeconomics.