Protected areas

Assesses the role of the MAB Programme in promoting biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, based on the outcome of a workshop held at the 1st World Conservation Congress, 1996. Included are several key papers which demonstrate experiences from around the world. The workshop illustrates that although there is no single formula by which the biosphere reserves concept can be successfully translated from theory into practice, it is an increasingly important concept

A system plan is the design of a total reserve system covering the full range of ecosystems and communities found in a particular country, identifying the range of purposes of protected areas and the relationships among the system components (i.e. individual areas, protected areas and other land uses), and different sectors and levels of society.

This new edition reveals a global network of over 30,000 protected areas designated under national legislation which covers 13.2 million square kilometres of land, freshwater and sea, an area larger than Canada, and accounts for nearly 8 per cent of the world's land area, as well as 1.5 million square kilometres of sea.