Biosphere reserves are sites established by countries and recognized under UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme to promote sustainable development based on local community efforts and sound science.

As places that seek to reconcile conservation of biological and cultural diversity and economic and social development through partnerships between people and nature, they are ideal to test and demonstrate innovative approaches to sustainable development from local to international scales.  

Biosphere reserves are thus globally considered as:

• sites of excellence where new and optimal practices to manage nature and human activities are tested and demonstrated;
• tools to help countries implement the results of the World Summit on Sustainable Development and, in particular, the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Ecosystem Approach;
• learning sites for the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development.

After their designation, biosphere reserves remain under national sovereign jurisdiction, yet they share their experience and ideas nationally, regionally and internationally within the World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR).

There are currently 580 sites in 114 countries.