Best Practices from Biosphere Reserves (BRs) of the EuroMAB Network (Europe & North America)

The EuroMAB network includes all countries in Europe and North America that participate in the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme and its World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR). With more than 300 biosphere reserves (BRs) in over 40 countries, EuroMAB is the largest and the oldest of the eight regional and seven thematic MAB networks. The EuroMAB group usually meets every two years. Conferences have so far taken place in České Budějovice (Czech Republic, 1986), Minsk (Belarus, 1997), Cambridge (Great Britain, 2000), Rome (Italy, 2002), Hernstein (Austria, 2005), Antalya (Turkey, 2007), Stará Lesná (Slovakia, 2009), Lundsbrunn (Sweden, 2011), Brockville (Canada, 2013), Haapsalu (Estonia, 2015), Sarlat-la-Canéda (France, 2017), Dublin (Ireland, 2019), Bad Kleinkirchheim (Austria 2022), and Wittenberg (Germany 2024). This report was prepared in March 2025 during a research visit at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing, one of the two partners forming the Joint Technical Secretariat of the World Network of Mountain Biosphere Reserves (WNMBR). Prepared at the suggestion of the author’s hosts, Professors Xu Weihua and Zhiyun Ouyang, it presents selected best-practice examples from BRs in Europe and North America, identified on the basis of the author’s extensive professional experience within the MAB Programme.