UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) coordinates a world network of over 500 Biosphere Reserves in 105 countries. These are sites recognized under UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme, which innovate and demonstrate approaches to conservation and sustainable development.
World Biosphere Reserve are places where conservation, research and development successfully interconnect. They integrate biological and cultural diversity, combining core protected areas with zones where sustainable development – and innovative approaches to it – are fostered, tested and developed by locals and enterprises alike.
Upon the declaration by UNESCO Baa Atoll joins an illustrious list of international Biosphere Reserves including: The Galapogos Islands, Ayer’s Rock in Australia, the Pantanal wetlands of Brazil, the Niagara escarpment in Canada, the Sundarbans of India and the Amboseli National Park in Kenya.
Biosphere Reserves have three key functions: conservation, learning and research, and sustainable development. They are vehicles for knowledge-sharing, research and monitoring, education and training, and participatory decision-making. Biosphere Reserves are under national sovereign jurisdiction, yet share their experience and ideas regionally and internationally within the world network of Biosphere reserves.
Biosphere Reserves are “living laboratories” for testing and demonstrating sustainable development. They are therefore about the future, and how local people can conserve the things they value – local knowledge, culture and the environment – whilst ensuring sustainable development. In other words, the designation is about encouraging and facilitating people to work together, to live in and manage the whole area for a sustainable future.