During a Regional Meeting of Co-ordinators of National MAB Committees and Biosphere Reserves, organized by the UNESCO-New Delhi Office in collaboration with the Indian National Committee for MAB and the Ministry of Environment and Forests, and hosted by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education at Dehra Dun, from 22-25 February 2001, MAB representatives from eight Asian countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Islamic Republic of Iran, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, expressed the will to forge closer sub-regional collaboration by initiating a process that would lead to the creation of a ‘South and Central Asia MAB Network’.
During the discussions, there was a general consensus that the new network would operate principally in the context of biosphere reserves and similarly managed areas and would focus on a number of thematic topics for regional collaboration, such as traditional ecological knowledge, biodiversity conservation, forest ecosystems, land degradation and rehabilitation in vulnerable ecological systems (such as wetlands, drylands, and mountains) and waste management. Sri Lanka offered to host the regional meeting in 2002, and also offered to produce a regional “South and Central Asia MAB Newsletter” to enhance networking.
It was also agreed that the scientific papers presented at the Dehra Dun meeting would be published through the UNESCO - New Delhi Office, with a synthesis of the presented papers as well as the results of the meeting being made available on the UNESCO-MAB website in preparation of the meeting of the South and Central Asian MAB representatives in Sri Lanka in October 2002.
Taking note of the Statutory Framework of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, and in particular its Article 8 that encourages the establishment of regional and thematic sub-networks, the representatives of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka participating in the South and Central Asian MAB Meeting held in Hikkaduwa (Sri Lanka) from 15 to 18 October 2002, agreed that the Statutes of the “South and Central Asia MAB Network” shall be as follows: |
