With the new inscriptions, Albania and Macedonia join the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.
TIRANA, June 16 – The Ohrid-Prespa lake region in the Albanian-Macedonian border has been named a UNESCO biosphere reserve as a site promoting sustainable development based on local community efforts and sound science. With the new inscriptions, Albania and Macedonia join the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.
The decision was made in the latest International Coordinating Council of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme held in Sweden. Thirteen new sites were added to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, which now numbers 631 sites in 119 countries, including 14 transboundary sites. “The Ohrid-Prespa landscape of the transboundary biosphere reserve is a balanced combination of water bodies, and surrounding mountains bordered by flat areas on its external boundaries. With an area of 446,244 hectares and a population of about 455,000, it includes part of Lake Ohrid and its surroundings in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which are inscribed on the World Heritage List, as well as part of Lake Orhid in Albania,” says UNESCO about the Ohrid-Prespa Transboundary Reserve shared by Albania and Macedonia.
Albania’s Environment Minister Lefter Koka said this decision further increases Albania’s responsibility for the well-administration of the area and improvement of the quality of life for the communities living in these areas.
“The creation of biosphere reserve is a sublimate of all existing protected strips in the region and the new status is expected to increase the interest in the world for our region from an environmental and business point of view,” said Dejan Panovski, Macedonia’s representative of the Lake Ohrid bilateral secretariat as quoted by Macedonia’s MINA news agency.
Launched in 1971, UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an intergovernmental scientific programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments. It proposes interdisciplinary research, demonstration and training in natural resources management.
It’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves currently counts 631 biosphere reserves in 119 countries all over the world.
Biosphere reserves are sites established by countries and recognized under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme to promote sustainable development based on local community efforts and sound science.
As places that seek to reconcile conservation of biological and cultural diversity and economic and social development through partnerships between people and nature, they are ideal to test and demonstrate innovative approaches to sustainable development from local to international scales.
