264 • Technologies To Maintain Biological Diversity 



cial support for programmes and can make 

 available the time of scientists working in the 

 national research councils and national insti- 

 tutes (23). 



Cooperation between intergovernmental or- 

 ganizations and NGOs has not been without 

 conflict, however, especially over how to treat 

 conservation concerns within the context of de- 

 velopment. The rapid increase in U.N. mem- 

 bership that occurred in the 1960s, as many de- 

 veloping countries became independent, led to 

 an increasing emphasis on development issues. 

 The landmark 1972 U.N.-sponsored Conference 

 on the Human Environment emphasized the 

 need to incorporate economic development 

 concerns in conservation activities. lUCN re- 

 sponded gradually at first but today the integra- 

 tion of conservation and development has 

 emerged as a central theme of lUCN activity 

 as reflected in its development of such docu- 

 ments as the World Conservation Strategy and 

 the emergence of its Conservation for Devel- 

 opment Center. 



Although lUCN and the affiliated World 

 Wildlife Fund represent the central interna- 

 tional NGOs, a large number of actors are 

 present in the international conservation arena. 

 These organizations vary greatly in size, func- 

 tion, constituency, approach, and focus. Al- 

 though the contributions of these many groups 

 is acknowleged, the following discussion is nec- 

 essarily restricted to the largest and most prom- 

 inent international organizations. 



Onsite Programs 

 Ecosystem and Spocios Maintenance 



Among the array of international programs 

 dealing with onsite diversity maintenance, sev- 

 eral stand out for their breadth of coverage. Un- 

 der the umbrella of UNESCO are two independ- 

 ent programs involved in protection of specific 

 sites, partially chosen for and indirectly con- 

 cerned with protection of biological diversity. 

 The Man in the Biosphere Program (MAB) sup- 

 ports conservation of sites representing the 

 Earth's different ecosystems, based on the Ud- 

 vardy system described in chapter 5. The World 



Heritage Convention mentioned earlier pro- 

 motes preservation of sites that have outstand- 

 ing examples of nature. 



The Man and the Biosphere Program is an 

 international scientific cooperative program 

 supporting research, training, and field inves- 

 tigation. Research focuses on understanding 

 the structure and function of ecosystems and 

 the environmental impacts of different types 

 of human intervention. The program involves 

 disciplines from the social, biological, and phys- 

 ical sciences; it is supervised by an Interna- 

 tional Coordination Council and is tied to the 

 field through national-level scientific MAB 

 committees. 



Launched in 1971, MAB took as one of its 

 themes the "conservation of natural areas and 

 the genetic material they contain." The con- 

 cept of biosphere reserve was introduced as a 

 series of protected areas linked through a global 

 network that could demonstrate the relation- 

 ship between conservation and development. 

 Building this network has formed a focus for 

 implementing the program through national- 

 level scientific committees. The first biosphere 

 reserves were designated in 1976. At present, 

 the network consists of 252 reserves in 66 coun- 

 tries (see figure 10-1) (30). 



In view of their joint interests, UNESCO, 

 FAO, UNEP, and lUCN convened the First In- 

 ternational Biosphere Reserve Congress in 1983 

 to review experiences and lessons and to de- 

 velop general guidance for future action. One 

 result of the congress was the preparation of 

 an Action Plan for Biosphere Reserves, which 

 has three main thrusts: 



1. improving and expanding the biosphere re- 

 serves network; 



2. developing basic knowledge for conserv- 

 ing ecosystems and biological diversity; 

 and 



3. making biosphere reserves more effective 

 in linking conservation and development, 

 as envisioned by the World Conservation 

 Strategy (71). 



The biosphere reserve concept is being ap- 

 plied in a number of cases, but evaluation of 



