On February 6th, criteria for sustainable management in biosphere reserves were discussed at the Federal Environment Ministry. The occasion was the first meeting of the project-accompanying working groups (PAG) on the R&D project Quality management in German biosphere reserves - Further development of criteria, recommendations and implementation strategies.
The discussed "Assessment framework for sustainable management" operationalises the corresponding criteria of the MAB National Committee and reflects both the activities of biosphere reserve administrations, third parties, such as public administration or companies and enterprises, as well as general regional developments and trends. It became clear that practicability can only be guaranteed with meaningful focal points and that the availability of data represents a central challenge.
With PAG, the R&D project reached its first milestone. In the further course of the project, the discussed evaluation framework will be tested in practice and a management tool will be developed to support biosphere reserve administrations in promoting sustainable management in their region.
The PAG is composed of representatives of the MAB National Committee, the biosphere reserves Berchtesgadener Land, Lower Saxony Wadden Sea, Spreewald, Schaalsee and Südostrügen. Also represented are the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and the IfLS as research participants.
The project results and experiences will be presented at a specialist workshop in spring 2020 and discussed together with representatives of the MAB National Committee and the German biosphere reserves.
Contact persons at IfLS: Dr. Ulrich Gehrlein (gehrlein[at]ifls.de) and Christoph Mathias (mathias[at]ifls.de)
Further information:
https://www.bfn.de/themen/gebietsschutz-grossschutzgebiete/biosphaerenreservate.html
https://www.bfn.de/fileadmin/MDB/documents/service/skript202.pdf
http://www.nationale-naturlandschaften.de/wissensbeitraege/nachhaltiges-wirtschaften-in-biosphaerenreservaten/
