A Memoir of the Origins and Evolution of the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Program, and the Value of UNESCO Programs to the World Today

Groves, Chris; Gilbert, Vernon

ABSTRACT: In 1945, at the end of the most destructive conflict in human history, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was established, mindful that “ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war.” In 1968 a vision emerged that conserving the world’s ecological resources, and the genetic material they contain, could fundamentally help to sustain the “defenses of peace.” Here we describe the value that international communication has had for the science and practice of protecting the world’s most precious places, natural and cultural, and the central place of UNESCO in this history. Large portions of the article are presented in the form of a memoir by Tom Gilbert of his involvement with UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Program, which goes back more than 50 years. Ideas discussed during the 1968 Paris UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference for Rational Use and Conservation of the Biosphere led to the birth of MAB, establishing “a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments” and a world network of biosphere reserves as a means to keep options open for the future. Nurturing synergy among groups with common goals in the international resource protection and geoheritage communities is as critical as ever, and in closing we both draw on our own experiences to propose that the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) could bring many groups and individuals together in support of this cause.