Biosphere Reserves

Biosphere Reserves

Subject: Environment

Context:

November 3 will be the first ‘The International Day for Biosphere Reserves’, to be celebrated beginning 2022.

What are Biosphere Reserves?

• 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 are nominated by national governments and remain under the sovereign jurisdiction of the states where they are located.
• Biosphere Reserves involve local communities and all interested stakeholders in planning and management.
• They integrate three main “functions”:

1. Conservation of biodiversity and cultural diversity
2. Economic development that is socio-culturally and environmentally sustainable
3. 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.

What are the Functions of Biosphere Reserve?

Conservation:

• Managing Biosphere Reserve’s genetic resources, endemic species, ecosystems, and landscapes.
• It may prevent man-animal conflict eg., death of tiger Avni who was shot dead when she turned man-eater
• Along with the wildlife, culture and customs of tribals are also protected

Development:

• Promoting economic and human growth that is sustainable on a sociocultural and ecological level.
• It seeks to strengthen the three pillars of sustainable development: social, economic and protection of the environment.

Logistic support:

• Promoting research activities, environmental education, training and monitoring in the context of local, national and international conservation and sustainable development.

How many Biosphere Reserves are in India?

There are 18 biosphere reserves in India:

1. Cold Desert, Himachal Pradesh
2. Nanda Devi, Uttarakhand
3. Khangchendzonga, Sikkim
4. Dehang-Debang, Arunachal Pradesh
5. Manas, Assam
6. Dibru-Saikhowa, Assam
7. Nokrek, Meghalaya
8. Panna, Madhya Pradesh
9. Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh
10. Achanakmar-Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh
11. Kachchh, Gujarat (Largest Area)
12. Similipal, Odisha
13. Sundarban, West Bengal
14. Seshachalam, Andhra Pradesh
15. Agasthyamala, Karnataka-Tamil Nadu-Kerala
16. Nilgiri, Tamil Nadu-Kerala (First to be Included)
17. Gulf of Mannar, Tamil Nadu
18. Great Nicobar, Andaman & Nicobar Island

What is the International Status of Biosphere Reserve?

• For natural areas, UNESCO has established the term “Biosphere Reserve” to reduce conflicts between development and preservation.
• Under the Man and Biosphere Reserve Program of UNESCO, national governments that meet a minimal set of requirements can nominate biosphere reserves.
• There are currently 738 biosphere reserves in 134 countries, including 22 transboundary sites.

There are total 12 biosphere reserves of India which have been recognized internationally under Man and Biosphere Reserve program:

1. Nilgiri (First to be included)
2. Gulf of Mannar
3. Sunderban
4. Nanda Devi
5. Nokrek
6. Pachmarhi
7. Similipal
8. Achanakmar – Amarkantak
9. Great Nicobar
10. Agasthyamala
11. Khangchendzonga (under Man and Biosphere Reserve Program in 2018)
12. Panna, Madhya Pradesh (The latest included BR)

What is Man and Biosphere Programme?

• Launched in 1971, UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an intergovernmental scientific programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments.
• MAB combines natural and social sciences, economics and education to improve human livelihoods and the equitable sharing of benefits, and to safeguard natural and managed ecosystems, thus promoting innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate, and environmentally sustainable.

What is Biosphere Conservation?

• A scheme called Biosphere Reserve is being implemented by the Government of India since 1986, in which financial assistance is given in 90:10 ratio to the Northeastern Region States and three Himalayan states and in the ratio of 60:40 to other states for maintenance, improvement, and development of certain items.
• The State Government prepares the Management Action Plan which is approved and monitored by the Central MAB Committee.

World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR)

• The UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) covers internationally designated protected areas, known as biosphere reserves, which are meant to demonstrate a balanced relationship between people and nature (e.g. encourage sustainable development). They are created under the Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB).
• The World Network of Biosphere Reserves promotes North-South and South-South collaboration and represents a unique tool for international co-operation through sharing knowledge, exchanging experiences, building capacity and promoting best practices.
• World Network of Mountain Biosphere Reserves is a new initiative under UNESCO’S MAN AND BIOSPHERE PROGRAMME

Ecological Footprint

• The Ecological Footprint is the only metric that measures how much nature we have and how much nature we use

What is the Ecological Footprint?

• The Ecological footprint is a measure of how much biologically productive land and
  water area an individual, population or activity uses to produce all the resources it
  consumes, to house all its infrastructure, and to absorb its waste1 given prevailing
  technology and resource management practices.
• People obtain resources from forests, cropland, fisheries, and grazing land. They also use these areas for accommodating roads, houses and energy infrastructure. Waste absorption also utilizes area-based ecosystem services, for example to assimilate carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning or cement production. The Ecological footprint adds up the areas required to produce resources or assimilate waste to
  the extent that they are mutually exclusive. The sum of these areas then measures the total human demand on nature.
• In other words, ecological footprint analysis builds on “mass flow balance,” where each flow is translated into the ecologically productive areas necessary to support them.

How the Footprint Works

• Ecological Footprint accounting measures the demand on and supply of nature.
• On the demand side, the Ecological Footprint adds up all the productive areas for which a population, a person or a product competes. It measures the ecological assets that a given population or product requires to produce the natural resources it consumes (including plant-based food and fiber products, livestock and fish products, timber and other forest products, space for urban infrastructure) and to absorb its waste, especially carbon emissions.
• The Ecological Footprint tracks the use of productive surface areas. Typically these areas are: cropland, grazing land, fishing grounds, built-up land, forest area, and carbon demand on land.
• On the supply side, a city, state or nation’s biocapacityrepresents the productivity of its ecological assets (including cropland, grazing land, forest land, fishing grounds, and built-up land). These areas, especially if left unharvested, can also serve to absorb the waste we generate, especially our carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.

• Both the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity are expressed in global hectares—globally comparable, standardized hectares with world average productivity.
• If a population’s Ecological Footprint exceeds the region’s biocapacity == biocapacity deficit.
• Its demand for the goods and services that its land and seas can provide—fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, wood, cotton for clothing, and carbon dioxide absorption—exceeds what the region’s ecosystems can regenerate. In more popular communications, we also call this “an ecological deficit.”
• A region in ecological deficit meets demand by importing, liquidating its own ecological assets (such as overfishing), and/or emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If a region’s biocapacity exceeds its Ecological Footprint, it has a biocapacity reserve.
• Conceived in 1990, the Ecological Footprint launched the broader Footprint movement, including the carbon Footprint.

Biocapacity.

• Ecosystems have a limited ability to supply us with natural resources. This is based
  on factors such as water availability, climate, soil fertility, solar energy, technology
  and management practices. This capacity to renew, driven by photosynthesis, is
  called biocapacity.

Biocapacity deficit Vs Ecological overshoot

When a population’s ecological footprint exceeds the biocapacity of its territory, it runs a biocapacity deficit. This deficit is balanced either through the use of biocapacity from elsewhere, or local overuse, called ‘ecological overshoot’. At the global level, deficit and overshoot are identical since there is no interplanetary trade allowing for biocapacity use from elsewhere.

Global Footprint Network

• Global Footprint Network calculates the ecological footprint of countries on an annual basis.
• Global Footprint Network was founded in 2003 with the goal of changing how the
  world manages its natural resources and responds to climate change.
• Global Footprint Network publishes yearly national footprint and Biocapacity
  -The Accounts measure the ecological resource use and resource capacity of nations over time.

What is UNESCO?

• UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It contributes to peace and security by promoting international cooperation in education, sciences, culture, communication and information.
• UNESCO promotes knowledge sharing and the free flow of ideas to accelerate mutual understanding and a more perfect knowledge of each other’s lives. UNESCO’s programmes contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals defined in the 2030 Agenda, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015.