Science in intergovernmental environmental relations: 40 years of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme and its future

In June 2012 the international community will commemorate “Stockholm+40” at the “Rio+20” Summit to be convened in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Originating during times of preparations for the Stockholm Conference (1972), the MAB Programme was an early experiment in the movement of international scientific co-operation towards an intergovernmental environmental arena. Compared to the 14 projects that constituted MAB in the 1970s and the early 1980s, today's Programme is concentrated on a range of research, education, monitoring and demonstration projects and initiatives in biosphere reserves. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves now counts 580 places in 114 countries and will continue to expand over the next decade. It provides a significant opportunity for the MAB Programme to promote research, learning and experimentation and collective action for sustainable development in land/seascapes located within particular cultural and political contexts. In using a global network of experimental sites for sustainability the MAB Programme may open intergovernmental environmental relations to closer collaboration with sub-national levels of government where more and more resource use and conservation decisions are made.