Boshra Salem is a professor, founder and the Chair of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Alexandria University in Alexandria, Egypt. She is president of Unesco's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) International Coordinating Council (ICC) [1] and serves on the International Council for Science (ICSU)'s Committee for Scientific Planning & Review. She has received a number of awards, including being recognized as an outstanding female scientist in the Women in Science Hall of Fame by the Embassy of the United States in Cairo, Egypt. [2]
Boshra Salem was awarded her Ph.D. jointly by the University of Alexandria and Imperial College London in 1989. She studied land use in arid lands using remote sensing techniques. As a post-doctoral fellow at the University of London (1994) and the University of Maryland (1996) she worked with computational tools and databases for geographic and environmental information management. [2]
Salem's major fields of interest are land degradation and desertification in arid environments, and the use of remote sensing, GIS applications and electronic databases to monitor and model changes. She is involved with the development of protected areas and biosphere reserves for biodiversity conservation, environmental impact assessment and strategic environment assessment, and alternative solar energy sources. [2] She developed an international solar desalination project for Bedouin communities. [3] [1] She is team leader for Egypt's Omayed Biosphere Reserve project, which received the 1997 Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation for its work in Egypt's Western Desert. [4] [5] [6] and has worked with Caroline King-Okumu and others on the Sustainable Management of Marginal Drylands (SUMAMAD) project. [7] [8]
Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an intergovernmental scientific program, launched in 1971 by UNESCO, that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments.
The Boucle du Baoulé National Park lies in western Mali, in Kayes Region and Koulikoro Region, set up in 1982. It has an area of 25,330 km² but has little large wildlife. The park is known for its prehistoric rock art and tombs. It is part of the UNESCO "Bouce Du Baoule Biosphere Reserve", along with Badinko Faunal Reserve to the southwest, Fina Faunal Reserve to the south, and Kongossambougou Faunal Reserve to the northeast.
The Golden Gate Biosphere Network is an internationally recognized voluntary coalition of federal, state, and local government agencies, nonprofit organizations, universities, and private partners within the Golden Gate Biosphere (GGB) region. The Network works towards protecting the biosphere region’s biodiversity and conserving its natural resources to maintain the quality of life for people within the region. The Network has been part of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme since 1988 and is part of the US Biosphere Network and EuroMAB. It is recognized by UNESCO due to the significant biodiversity of the region, as well as the Network's efforts to demonstrate and promote a balanced relationship between humans and the biosphere.
Alexandria University is a public university in Alexandria, Egypt. It was established in 1938 as a satellite of Fouad University, becoming an independent entity in 1942. It was known as Farouk University until the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 when its name was changed to the University of Alexandria. Taha Hussein was the founding rector of Alexandria University. It is now the second largest university in Egypt and has many affiliations to various universities for ongoing research.
India is home to a large variety of wildlife. It is a biodiversity hotspot with its various ecosystems ranging from the Himalayas in the north to the evergreen rain forests in the south, the desert sands of the west to the marshy mangroves of the east. India lies within the Indomalayan realm and is the home to about 7.6% of mammal, 14.7% of amphibian, 6% of bird, 6.2% of reptilian, and 6.0% of flowering plant species. India's forest lands nurture about 500 species of mammals and 2000+ bird species.
The Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation is a biennial award sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Sultan Qaboos Bin Said of Oman "to afford recognition to outstanding contributions by individuals, groups of individuals, institutes or organizations in the management or preservation of the environment, consistent with the policies, aims and objectives of UNESCO, and in relation to the Organization's programmes in this field."
The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the largest assembly of data on the world's terrestrial and marine protected areas, containing more than 260,000 protected areas as of August 2020, with records covering 245 countries and territories throughout the world. The WDPA is a joint venture between the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Commission on Protected Areas.
Katun Nature Reserve is a Russian zapovednik located in the highlands of the central Altai Mountains of south Siberia. The Katun River runs down through a valley in the reserve, serving as the primary source of the Ob River. The headwaters of the Katun River originate on Mount Belukha, the highest mountain in Siberia at 4,506 metres (14,783 ft), which is located on the far eastern edge of the preserve. Katun is an internationally important center of biodiversity, forming part of the "Golden Mountains of Altai" UNESCO World Heritage Site. Katun Nature Reserve is situated in the Ust-Koksinsky District of Altai Republic.
Andrew Warren is a British physical geographer. He is Emeritus Professor of Geography at University College London, UK.
Biosphere reserves are established according to the UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) to promote sustainable development for conservation of biological and cultural diversity. As of 2016, the Lal Suhanra Biosphere Reserve and Ziarat Juniper Forest are the only two biosphere reserve in Pakistan, which were approved by UNESCO in 1977 and 2013 respectively. A number of initiatives and projects have been undertaken to promote and develop other biosphere reserves in Pakistan but due to weak implementation this has not yet been materialized. In July 2012, Pakistan Museum of Natural History and Beijing Museum of Natural History signed a MoU to work on trans-boundary biodiversity and to improve MAB related activities in the Karakoram, Himalaya, and Hindukush regions.
Omayed is a 75,800 ha UNESCO designated Biosphere Reserve in western Egypt in a sparsely populated region of coastal desert 80 kilometers west of Alexandria and 200 kilometers east of Matruh. It was designated as a biosphere reserve in 1981 and extended in 1998. The area includes four villages with a total 400 inhabitants. Habitats include coastal calcareous dunes, inland ridges, saline depressions, nonsaline depressions and inland plateau. The area provides important moss habitat. The Khashm El-Aish plateau in Omayed Protected Area (OPA) is home to 29 moss taxa recorded for the first time from Mediterranean coast, Egypt and 16 of them new records to the western Mediterranean coast. OPA includes 0.07% of Egypt's land mass but is home to more than 17 percent of its moss flora.
The Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve.
The Yayu Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve is situated in Ilu Abba Bora Zone of the Oromia Regional State, southwestern Ethiopia.
Oka Nature Reserve is a Russian 'zapovednik' located in the Meschera lowlands, the floodplain of the Oka River and the Pra River. With extensive lowland rivers and forested peatlands, the reserve is an important area for waterfowl and waders. The reserve hosts breeding centers for bison and for crane. The site is situated in the Spassky District, Ryazan Oblast, about 60 km northeast of the city of Ryazan. In 1994, the "Flood plains of Rivers Pra and Oka" was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance. The site was designated a UNESCO Man and Biosphere (MAB) reserve in 1978. The reserve was formally established in 1935, and covers an area of 55,722 ha (215.14 sq mi).
Taymyr Nature Reserve is a Russian 'zapovednik' located in the northern lowlands of Siberia, on the Taimyr Peninsula, and on the coast of the Laptev Sea of the Arctic Ocean. The reserve includes the most northern forest of Dahurian larch in the world, and also the most northern mainland mountain range in the world. The protected area was established to protect the breeding grounds of the Red-breasted goose as well as the summer residences of wild reindeer and the biodiversity of the Lake Taymyr. The reserve is situated about 120 km east of the town of Norilsk, and 3,000 km northeast of Moscow, in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai. In 1995, the site was designated a UNESCO MAB Reserve. The reserve was formally established in 1979, and covers an area of 1,781,928 ha (6,880.06 sq mi).
The Jornada Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in southern New Mexico. It is one of three biosphere reserves representing the Chihuahuan Desert. The area extends from the crest of the San Andres Mountains, which are dominated by shrub woodlands, to the Jornada Plains characterized by semi-desert grasslands.
Caroline King-Okumu is an international development opportunities manager for the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. She was formerly a senior researcher for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Her major areas of research are dryland ecosystems, economic and environmental assessment, and climate change. She is considered an international expert on land and water management, particularly drylands agriculture. King-Okumu is based in Kenya but is involved in research and projects throughout the world.
Amal Bishara is an Israeli Arab doctor, and the director of Bone Marrow Registry Outreach, Hadassah Medical Center, which is associated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. There she runs the only bone marrow transplant registry in the world for unrelated Arab donors. Dr. Amal has published and presented internationally on her research into immunogenetics. She serves on the Accreditation Committee of the European Federation for Immunogenetics.
Malwattage Celestine Violet Savitri Gunatilleke is professor emeritus at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka's Central Province. She has had a long career in forest ecology and has been a leader in quantitative ecology and education. Most of her research has focused in the Sinharaja rain forest in Sri Lanka. She considers her main contribution to forest ecology to be spreading the idea that successful forest conservation depends on local conservationists. In line with this, she is proud of her students and their accomplishments in the field of conservation.
Kazeem Akanni Jimoh is a Nigerian agricultural economist and a research scientist with the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN) who won the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Award under the category of MAB young scientist of 2019 at the age of 27. He is the third Nigerian to receive the UNESCO MAB award and also has a first degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Maiduguri.