The Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve in South Africa is a valuable ecosystem, and as a typical South African landscape it should be preserved just like diverse habitats for characteristic species of plants and animals. Savannah, grassland, and forests extend over roughly 4.8 million hectares of land along the border between South Africa and Mozambique. An estimated 1.5 million people live in the region.
On September 20, 2001, Kruger to Canyons was registered by UNESCO as the 411th biosphere reserve worldwide. UNESCO biosphere reserves are internationally important model regions that stand for sustainable development and the preservation of habitats. They are intended to bring the interests of environmental protection and commerce into harmony, thus enabling people and nature to coexist. Nature is not protected from people here, rather preserved for and with the people to demonstrate that sustainable development can create income and reduce poverty. The UNESCO global network of meanwhile 560 biosphere reserves shows how sustainability can be lived.
Protection, development, and research
Biosphere reserves essentially serve as open-air laboratories for an innovative alliance between protection and use that take on three fundamental and mutually complementary functions in accordance with international guidelines: First, they should protect nature and its genetic resources. This means that reserves should conserve natural habitats largely unaffected by humans, preserve semi-natural and diverse cultural landscapes, including often traditional forms of land use, and ensure the sustainable use of resources as appropriate for the location. Each biosphere reserve includes a representative diversity of indigenous flora and fauna. Second, they should be developed sustainably. As a new type of economic landscape, the aim is for ecologically appropriate land use in cooperation with the people living there. The concrete development goals are a function of the specific ecological and socio-economic conditions. Third, they should assume a pioneering role by means of targeted research and the role of a multiplier through educational measures. Solutions that fulfill the complex and often seemingly contradictory requirements of nature and humankind usually require long-term ecosystem research and monitoring.
Characteristic of biosphere reserves is their subdivision into three landscape zones. The sensitive core zone is an area devoted to strict protection of the animals and plants living there and the associated habitats and landscapes. The so-called buffer zone surrounding the core zone is intended to screen it from external influences. Ecological agriculture and gentle tourism are permitted in the buffer zone, and the focus is on the care of habitats created over the centuries by mankind. The greatest area is occupied by the development zone. Although all economic and land use forms are permitted here, this transition zone serves a very important purpose: to sensitize society to the topic of sustainability by means of targeted model projects
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