Wittenberg (d.de) – Germany’s Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, at an international conference of the UNESCO biosphere reserves in Germany, has described the history of these sustainable model regions as a “success story”. “Even 50 years on, the idea of biosphere reserves is still relevant today: to develop models of sustainable management approaches and then to introduce them on a broad basis,” Lemke said. “The climate crisis makes it increasingly important to manage nature sustainably, to trial new methods to this end and to introduce them on a wide scale, as is practised in biosphere reserves.”
The network of UNESCO biosphere reserves from Europe and North America is meeting at a conference in Germany for the first time in June 2024. At a conference entitled “Climate for Change”, around 250 people are in Wittenberg to discuss measures to protect biodiversity, funding for sustainable management methods, as well as the role of biosphere reserves in tackling natural disasters, according to the Environment Ministry.
UNESCO biosphere reserves are internationally representative model regions that preserve biodiversity and functioning ecosystems as the basis for future-proof economic and social development. Worldwide, there are more than 700 UNESCO biosphere reserves in over 130 countries, 17 of them in Germany.
