Research project REGO

UNESCO Biosphere Reserves (BR) are a pioneering concept aimed at reconciling nature conservation and human development. To achieve this ambitious goal, BR must tackle a wide range of tasks and, according to the “Man and the Biosphere” (MAB) Program, increasingly do so with the involvement and participation of local stakeholders and actor groups.

This would require excellent governance systems to equip BR with the necessary capacities, financial resources, and opportunities for participation. However, existing research shows that BR are rarely able to achieve this goal 100% and that there is a lack of suitable governance models for this purpose. Currently, there is still too little knowledge about how to resolve this problem, because: (i) there are few concrete guidelines from UNESCO on how governance in BR should look like; (ii) to date, there has been little research on how governance is organized and implemented in BR; and (iii) there are also no suitable tools available to evaluate the extent to which governance in BR is currently capable of integrating nature conservation and sustainable development.

Focusing on Austria and Switzerland, REGO investigates how existing governance models are structured and how they can be redesigned to enable BR to fulfill their diverse responsibilities in the best possible way. To this end, the project team reviews the relevant literature, develops new theoretical concepts, conducts interviews with experts, and examines legal frameworks. The focus is on mutual learning among the participating BR and the development of recommendations for decision-makers. Finally, the project will also develop new governance formats and implement them in the BR Großes Walsertal and Engiadina Val Müstair. In this way, the project makes an important contribution to ensuring that the governance of biospheres is fit for the future, also with regard to the further evolution of the MAB program.

The research project “REGO: Reconciling Governance for Conservation and Sustainable Development in Biosphere Reserves” (05/2026–04/2028) is funded within the framework of the MAB Call 2025 of the ESS Programme at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and with the support of the Forum Landscape, Alps, Parks of SCNAT.