Hangzhou to host biosphere conference

The fifth World Conference on Biosphere Reserves will be held in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, from Sept 22 to 27, 2025, making China the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to host the meeting, according to UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere International Co-ordinating Council.

At the 35th session of the council, which opened in Paris on Monday, Hangzhou was designated to be the host of both the congress and the council's 37th session.

"We are looking for a venue where we'll be able to combine the discussion of CBD(Convention on Biological Diversity), impact on the MAB program, and climate change impact on the MAB program," Adeshola Adepoju, chair of the UNESCO council, was quoted as saying by China Global Television Network.

"We thought the best place to go is China, and that's what formed the unanimous agreement of the member states."

Launched by UNESCO in 1971, the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme is an intergovernmental scientific program that aims to establish a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments, according to UNESCO. It combines the natural and social sciences with a view to improve human livelihoods and safeguard natural and managed ecosystems.

Based on the program, the World Biosphere Reserve Network is the largest and oldest collection of nature reserves in the UNESCO system. At present, it has 738 world biosphere reserves in 134 countries and regions, covering around 5 percent of the Earth's land surface.

As of May, 34 protected natural areas in China have been approved by UNESCO as world biosphere reserves, the most among Asian nations.

The World Conference on Biosphere Reserves is the largest and most extensive international meeting in the MAB Programme system. Held every 10 years or so, the conference takes stock of the development of the MAB Programme and the World Biosphere Reserve Network in the last phase. It also formulates a development strategy and action plan for the next stage.

China formally joined the MAB Programme in 1973. Five years later, the Chinese National Committee for Man and the Biosphere Programme was established, with its secretariat set in the Chinese Academy of Sciences.