On 7-11 March 2023, our GLOMOS collaborator Paola Fontanella Pisa was invited to participate to the first technical meeting of the World Network of UNESCO Mountain Biosphere Reserves, hosted in the Valles de Omaña y Luna Biosphere Reserve in Spain.

To date, out of the 738 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, at least 474 of them are in mountainous areas. While each Biosphere Reserve bears unique examples of human-nature interactions, it is also true that many are the common challenges shared by mountain communities globally. As ‘learning places’ for sustainable development, mountain Biosphere Reserves can play critical roles in the efforts towards sustainable development. Hence, this network aims to support not only Biosphere Reserve managers and practitioners, but also to help bridge the science-policy-practice gaps.

The technical secretariat of this newly re-launched World network of Mountain Biosphere Reserves is shared by the Valles de Omaña y Luna Biosphere Reserve and the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

This meeting represented an opportunity for the technical secretariat and the steering committee members to define the line of action of the network for the next two years by establishing priorities, goals and needs.

For more details about the meeting, please see here: https://www.mountainbiosphere.org/en/mountain-biosphere-reserves-in-a-new-era-for-resilient-socio-ecological-systems/

For those interested in receiving newsletter on the network’s activities, please see here: https://www.mountainbiosphere.org/en/