Opportunities to Revive the U.S. Biosphere Reserve Program – A Tool for Large Landscape Conservation Initiatives

The U.S. helped create the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program more than 40 years ago, and played an important leadership role in the MAB program for many years.  The World Network of Biosphere Reserves, a MAB sponsored network to encourage internationally comparable large landscape partnerships throughout the world, includes 47 sites, involving 99 individual units, in the United States.  Each nation develops and nominates its own biosphere reserves for consideration for addition to the World Network.  Internationally, biosphere reserves are guided by the 1995 Statutory Framework of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.  U.S. biosphere reserves are guided by the 1994 Strategic Plan for the U.S. Biosphere Reserve Program.  Both of these guidance documents encourage developing landscape-scale partnerships among interested land managers to work together voluntarily to achieve common goals of biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and provision of logistic support, such as science and education.  After over a decade of minimal involvement, the U.S. government, led by the State Department and the National Park Service, is currently reviewing options for a revived U.S. engagement with the MAB program.  Most U.S. Biosphere Reserves have expressed an interest in reviving their participation.  Comparison of several U.S. biosphere reserve landscape programs with those of biosphere reserves in several other countries shows the promise that biosphere reserves bring for encouraging cooperation at the landscape scale among managers and land owners across individual land management boundaries to address questions of voluntary cooperation in governance, developing novel funding arrangements, utilizing ecosystem services, and addressing landscape fragmentation and climate change.  Results of this comparative study will identify guidance strategies for making voluntary U.S. biosphere reserve cooperative programs stronger and more forward-looking.