The results of the 8th Meeting of the South and Central Asia Man and Biosphere Network (SACAM), Almaty, Kazakhstan, 24-25 October 2016

Abstract

The 8th Meeting of the South & Central Asia MAB (SACAM) Network was held in 24-25 October 2016 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The meeting titled as «Biosphere Reserves and Sustainable Development» was attended by 65 participants including those from SACAM member countries. The aim was to discuss how to jointly promote BRs to serve as models for sustainable development. Barsakelmes Biosphere Reserve (Kazakhstan) has received the UNESCO certificate of the inclusion of Barsakelmes to the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves, such decision was approved by member states of the MAB International Coordinating Council in its 28th session on 19 March 2016 (Lima, Peru). Three delegates were approved as Bureau members of SACAM Network for the next biennium period: Mr. Roman Jashenko (Kazakhstan) as a Chairperson, Ms. Amita Prasad (India) as a Vice-Chairperson and Mr. Ram Prasad Chaudhary as a Rapporteur. The meeting work was divided into five plenary sessions, one of them was devoted to presention and discussion of the national reports of the SACAM participating countries. The main results of the meeting were the updated Statues of the SACAM Network and the Meeting Recommendations, both documents will be published soon in the «Bulletin of the Al-Farabi Kazakh Nartional University, geographical series». The 8th SACAM meeting recommendations were aimed at implementing the principles of the Lima Action Plan into the national MAB Action Plans to strengthen the cooperation within SACAM network. Meeting approved membeship of new member states: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. &nbsp