Abstract
Research about biosphere reserves’ management effectiveness can contribute to better understanding of the existing gap between the biosphere reserve concept and its implementation. However, there is a limited understanding about where and how research about biosphere reserves’ management effectiveness has been conducted, what topics are investigated, and which are the main findings. This study addresses these gaps in the field, building on a systematic literature review of scientific papers. To this end, we investigated characteristics of publications, scope, status and location of biosphere reserves, research methods and management effectiveness. The results indicate that research is conceptually and methodologically diverse, but unevenly distributed. Three groups of papers associated with different goals of biosphere reserves were identified: capacity building, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. In general, each group is associated with different methodological approaches and different regions of the world. The results indicate the importance of scale dynamics and trade-offs between goals, which are advanced as important leverage points for the success of biosphere reserves. Building on the gaps identified in the literature, a research agenda is proposed, focusing on the need to investigate mechanisms for holistic research, outcomes and trade-offs, transformations for social-ecological fit and institutions for integrated management across scales.
Highlights
Biosphere reserves are privileged places to understand how to sustainably manage and govern social-ecological systems [1] and to advance sustainability science [2,3]
Using a systematic literature review of the scientific literature, this study aimed to contribute to a better understanding about where and how the research about biosphere reserves’ management effectiveness have been conducted, which topics have been investigated and what the main findings are
The results indicate that, in line with their multiple goals and complex processes of implementation, the research about biosphere reserves’ management effectiveness is diverse—it investigates different topics in different locations—and plural, because it includes different conceptual perspectives and methodological approaches
Summary
Biosphere reserves are privileged places to understand how to sustainably manage and govern social-ecological systems [1] and to advance sustainability science [2,3]. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) currently contains 701 designated sites, distributed over 124 countries [4]. Research about biosphere reserves’ management effectiveness can provide a better understanding of why there is this gap [1,8,9], what is its extension [10] and how it can be closed [11–13]. There is a limited understanding about where and how the research about biosphere reserves’ management effectiveness has been conducted, what topics have been investigated and which are the main findings. This study addresses these gaps in the literature
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