The Council of Ministers of the Government of Spain, at its meeting on June 22, 2021, approved the renewal of the agreement with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with the aim that our country will continue to host the UNESCO International Center for Mediterranean Biosphere Reserves, headquarters of the Abertis Foundation, for another six years.
Spain's ambassador to UNESCO, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, and the director general of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, who is visiting Barcelona to coincide with UNESCO's 2022 World Conference on Higher Education, signed the agreement in the presence of the president of the Abertis Foundation, Elena Salgado, members of the board of directors of Abertis and the board of trustees of its Foundation, among other attendees.
The agreement, signed today at Castellet castle, headquarters of the UNESCO Center for Mediterranean Biosphere Reserves, aims to promote and boost research, training, knowledge exchange and transfer activities in Mediterranean biosphere reserves, promoting sustainability in their eco-systems and strengthening their technical capacities to ensure a balanced management of natural resources.
A multimedia adventure through the World Network of Biosphere Reserves
Coinciding with the renewal of this commitment to the Mediterranean reserves, the Director General of UNESCO inaugurated an exhibition sponsored by the Abertis Foundation and created to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Man and the Biosphere Program (MaB), which can be visited at the Joan Miró Park in Barcelona. It is a hybrid exhibition, in multiple and multimedia format, that shows, in their own voice, stories from biosphere reserve managers, local communities, academia and the artistic world, that speak of resilience, sustainability and the construction of a common future and how to celebrate life.
The exhibition is a collective work of people from more than 20 of UNESCO's 727 biosphere reserves in 131 countries and consists of a set of panels with QR codes that redirect to a digital platform where users can visit the exhibition online and access podcasts, with the personal stories and original soundscapes of these biosphere reserves.
The official inauguration of the exhibition took place in Barcelona, from where it plans to travel to other locations, including Mexico, one of the countries in the world with the largest number of bio-sphere reserves along with Spain.
15 January 2023
Following the closure of the Erasmus+ EduBioMed project, on capacity building for education and research applied to Mediterranean biosphere reserves, UNESCOMED has taken up its baton and its motto: "It's time to learn from biosphere reserves".
Therefore, from the UNESCOMED website, an interactive platform for the exchange of knowledge on Mediterranean biosphere reserves, we are launching a new series of training videos on biosphere reserves as part of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) produced in the framework of the EduBioMed project.
The series of short videos, which includes an initial inspirational lecture and 28 educational talks organised in 5 ...
14 December 2022
During the second semester of 2022, five new biosphere reserves have joined the Mediterranean Biosphere Reserves' Network.
25 November 2022
On 23, 24 and 25 November, Castellet Castle became the meeting point for defining the future strategic lines of the Mediterranean Network of Biosphere Reserves (MedMaB).
This was the first face-to-face meeting of managers after the Covid-19 pandemic, bringing together more than 30 managers from 8 different countries.
Elena Salgado, chairlady of the Abertis Foundation and Georgina Flamme, director of the Abertis Foundation were present at the event along with Sagrario Arrieta, deputy director of the Autonomous Organisation of National Parks (OAPN) and Nöeline Raondry, director of the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences at UNESCO, among other personalities.
