- India
- Sep 29
India’s Cold Desert added to list of UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserves
• UNESCO officially announced the designation of the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve in India as part of 26 new sites added to UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) during the 5th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves in Hangzhou, China.
• The announcement is part of UNESCO’s broader commitment to the Man and the Biosphere Programme, which celebrates its 50th anniversary.
5th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves
• Every 10 years, the World Network of Biosphere Reserves comes together to identify priorities, strengthen collaboration, and define a Global Action Plan for the future.
• UNESCO gathered more than 2,000 international experts, public decision-makers, civil society, Indigenous representatives and youth for the 5th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves from September 22 to 26, to take stock of the achievements of this historic UNESCO programme, and chart its course for the coming decade.
• UNESCO designated 26 new biosphere reserves across 21 countries – the highest number in 20 years.
• The World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) now includes 785 sites in 142 countries, with an additional one million km² of natural areas brought under protection since 2018.
• This year, six countries welcomed their first biosphere reserve, while Sao Tome and Principe became the first State to have its entire territory designated as a biosphere reserve.
• UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme is an intergovernmental scientific programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments.
• It combines the natural and social sciences with a view to improving human livelihoods and safeguarding natural and managed ecosystems, thus promoting innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate and environmentally sustainable.
What are Biosphere Reserves?
• Biosphere reserves are “learning places for sustainable development”.
• They are sites for testing interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing changes and interactions between social and ecological systems, including conflict prevention and management of biodiversity.
• They are places that provide local solutions to global challenges.
• Biosphere Reserves include terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems.
• Each site promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.
• They are nominated by national governments and remain under the sovereign jurisdiction of the states where they are located.
• Biosphere Reserves are designated under the intergovernmental MAB Programme by the Director-General of UNESCO following the decisions of the MAB International Coordinating Council (MAB ICC). Their status is internationally recognised. Member States can submit sites through the designation process.
• The World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) covers all major representative natural and semi-natural ecosystems.
• There are about 275 million people living in Biosphere Reserves worldwide.
• Biosphere Reserves involve local communities and all interested stakeholders in planning and management.
They integrate three main functions:
1) Conservation of biodiversity and cultural diversity.
2) Economic development that is socio-culturally and environmentally sustainable.
3) Logistic support, underpinning development through research, monitoring, education and training.
These three functions are pursued through the Biosphere Reserves’ three main zones:
1) Core Areas: It comprises a strictly protected zone that contributes to the conservation of landscapes, ecosystems, species and genetic variation
2) Buffer Zones: It surrounds or adjoins the core area, and is used for activities compatible with sound ecological practices that can reinforce scientific research, monitoring, training and education.
3) Transition Area: It is where communities foster socio-culturally and ecologically sustainable economic and human activities.
• Biosphere reserves play an important scientific role, serving as a site for research and monitoring, providing valuable data and insights that can inform environmental management and policy decisions.
• Furthermore, they help in achieving global development targets such as those set by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, inter alia, on protecting and restoring significant portions of the Earth’s ecosystems by 2030.
• They also promote unique local sustainable development ideas, safeguard biodiversity, and combat climate change.
Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve in India
• The Cold Desert Cultural Landscape of India is situated in the Himalayas and stretches from Ladakh in the north to Kinnaur (in the state of Himachal Pradesh) in the south. Administratively, it can be said to comprise the Leh and Kargil districts of Ladakh, Spiti region of the Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and a part of Kinnaur District in Himachal Pradesh.
• Spanning 7,770 km² at altitudes ranging from 3,300 to 6,600 meters, the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve encompasses windswept plateaus, glacial valleys, alpine lakes, and rugged high-altitude deserts.
• This is India’s first high-altitude cold desert biosphere reserve and one of the coldest and driest ecosystems in UNESCO’s WNBR.
• It covers the Pin Valley National Park and its surroundings, Chandratal and Sarchu & Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary.
• It harbors 732 species of vascular plants, including 30 endemics and 157 near-endemics of the Indian Himalayas, as well as iconic fauna such as the Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia), the Himalayan Ibex (Capra sibirica), the Blue Sheep (Pseudois nayaur), the Himalayan wolf (Canis lupus chanco), the Himalayan snowcock (Tetraogallus himalayensis), and the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos daphanea).
• The trans-Himalayan region is home also to around 12,000 inhabitants who live in scattered villages, practicing traditional pastoralism, yak and goat herding, barley and pea farming, and Tibetan herbal medicine, knowledge sustained through Buddhist monastic traditions and community councils that regulate the use of fragile alpine resources.
Biosphere Reserves in India
There are 13 Indian sites in UNESCO’s list of biosphere reserves.
They are:
• Nilgiri
• Gulf of Mannar
• Sunderban
• Nanda Devi National Park
• Nokrek
• Pachmarhi
• Similipal National Park
• Achanakmar-Amarkantak
• Great Nicobar
• Agasthyamala
• Khangchendzonga
• Panna National Park
• Cold Desert Cultural Landscape of India.