World Heritage and Biosphere Reserves: observation platforms for societal benefits of ecosystems

1. World Heritage and Biosphere Reserves: observation platforms for societal benefits of ecosystems NatarajanIshwaran International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST), CEODE, China ISRSE35 Side Meeting GEO Ecosystems SBA Work Meeting (Beijing International Convention Center) 13:30~17:30 (UTC+8), 21 April, 2013

2. 190 States Parties to the Convention As of September 2012 962 World Heritage sites in 157 countries As of August 2012

3. Key Concept: Outstanding Universal Value OUTSTANDING UNIVERSAL VALUE MEETS CRTIERIA PROTECTION AND MANAGEMENT INTEGRITY AND AUTHENTICITY Illustration of the three pillars of Outstanding Universal Value. All three must be in place for a property to meet the requirements of the World Heritage LIst

4. Wet tropics of Queensland Land Tenure - Wet Tropics WH Area Land tenure (2002) Area (ha) % of WHA National parks 286,214 32 Forest reserve 259,382 29 State forests 89,442 10 Timber reserves 62,610 7 Various reservoirs & dams 10,207 1 Unallocated State Land 60,515 7 Leasehold 90,146 11 Freehold & similar 17,341 2 Roads, Railways 5,696 0.6 Rivers 3 308 0.4 TOTAL 894,420 100

5. Second Consultation Meeting of the International Support Group (ISG) • Other Matters • Closure of the Meeting

6. Evolution of the level and nature of integration Lanzarote Biosphere Reserve, Spain

7. Dinghushan BR ,1979

8. THE BRAZILIAN NETWORK OF BIOSPHERE RESERVES

9. A Mata Atlântica - Ecossistemas Dunas Araucárias (F.O.M.) Florestas Estacionais Corais Campos de Altitude Floresta Ombrófila Densa Cavernas Ilhas Manguezais Praias, Costões, Restingas

10. FOREST COVER INSÃO PAULO STATE 1886 Initial forest cover 1854 1907 1920 1935 1952 1962 1973

12. Space showing 25 years of human activities 1973 1998

13. World Heritage at 40 (2012) – how the World Heritage Convention contributes to sustainable development Sustainable development, almost by definition, is on a scale that goes well beyond the scope of a World Heritage site, so that management and planning needs must be more integrated in territorial and regional strategies – and so the results and repercussions of these actions reflect upon our larger communities and eventually our global community as a whole. The aim of the World Heritage Convention is the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission……. The text of the Convention, adopted in 1972, does not make any specific mention of the term “sustainable development” but it does carry the spirit and promise of sustainability in its insistence that culture and nature form a single, closed continuum of the planet’s resources……..

14. BanteaySrei Angkor Angkor Roulos Tonle Sap Lake

16. The Angkor Heritage Landscape – Building a database and guiding the future of its conservation and sustainable development Defining the Angkor Heritage Landscape • Angkor WH site • The catchment of the three rivers that made up the ancient Angkor Hydraulic System (Siam Reap, Roulos and Puok) • The Kulen mountain where three rivers originate • Parts of the northern/northeastern parts of the Tonle Sap lake contiguous with the Angkor Heritage site • The International Coordinating Committee of Angkor jointly chaired by France and Japan has prioritized water catchments, Kulen Mountains and resident populations wellbeing for Angkor conservation

17. The Angkor Heritage Landscape – Building a database and guiding the future of its conservation and sustainable development • A time series of events around which data gathering (including remote sensing data) can be directed towards: • 1972 – the date of the WH Convention; first LANDSAT images; but there are pictures and maps and even aerial photos likely to be available from archives in France and elsewhere • 1982 – IUCN Publication on the World’s Greatest Natural Areas – a global guide to potential WNH sites – identified Angkor as potential Mixed World Heritage site; “In order to provide a year-round supply of water for irrigating rice crops, the engineers of the Khmer Empire connected a region the size of modern-day New York City with an elaborate system of reservoirs, canals and dams. Rather than using the water of Tonle Sap, the reservoirs collect monsoon rainwater, and store it for the dry months. NASA photographs reveal the traces of these ancient waterworks, hidden at ground level by the thick tropical rainforest…. • 1992 – Angkor WH site and Angkor WH in Danger • 2002 – Angkor – 10 years as WH site • 2012 – Angkor – 20 years as WH site • 2022 & 2032 – do we construct visualizations and scenarios????

18. Information and Data on Societal Benefits around selected themes: disasters, health, agriculture, ecosystems, biodiversity…..GEO workplan • Overlapping themes – Biodiversity and ecosystems: according to the CBD biodiversity has three (hierarchical) levels – ecosystems, species and gene pools; all societal benefits deriving from ecosystems are therefore also biodiversity benefits. • CBD has strongly advocated an ecosystem approach to integrating terrestrial, freshwater and coastal/ocean resources for conservation and sustainable development; hence it is inevitable that in reality we would have to deal with land/seascapes that contain a mix of “natural” and human-impacted ecosystems. WH sites and BRs are good examples to “UN sites” to work with in order to demonstrate societal benefits of ecosystems and biodiversity themes; • Tracking changes in ecosystems that characterize a land/seascape from the past and building scenarios on how that land/seascape could evolve in the future in the context of climate change consequences – an increasing need for planners and decision makers; and important heuristic tool for “capacity building;”

19. Information and Data on Societal Benefits around selected themes: disasters, health, agriculture, ecosystems, biodiversity…..GEO workplan • UNESCO Director General’s Climate Change Initiative called upon the use of UNESCO World Heritage sites and biosphere reserves as climate change observatories • Use of World Heritage sites and biosphere reserves as places for observing, understanding and modeling ecosystem change in the context of climate change – much needed and could serve as a shared mission of HIST/GEO collaboration • Participatory approaches to the gathering, analyses and interpretation of geo-spatial data – could be an interesting activity that builds capacity of planners and decision makers (Participatory Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Technologies Group Members group-digests@linkedin.com); • The possibility of linking to IPBES Assessments; a move from Global, sub-regional or even national assessments to “place” or “context” specific assessments carried out not only by researchers but by a mix of researchers, planners and decision makers.

20. Ecosystem services and biosphere reserve zones (Program for Ecosystem Assessment of Dryland Biosphere Reserves. MAB Israel (2010) and UrielSafriel, Chair, Israel MAB National Committee )

21. Thank you！