On the occasion of the UNESCO National Commission’s 50^th anniversary and UNESCO’s 70^th anniversary this year, Malta’s  National Commission is hosting a major conference on best practices in island and coastal biosphere reserves from the 24^th to the 26^th March.

Biodiversity experts from the five continents will be meeting at the Corinthia Palace Hotel, Attard, to explore sustaining and improving relations between man and nature in a world network.

Malta currently does not have an official biosphere reserve. Of such reserves there are over 610 in 117 countries. The chairman of the UNESCO National Commission, Professor Henry Frendo, said that the closest to such a site in the Maltese Islands so far is Dwejra in Gozo, although other ‘nature’ sites exist such as the Majjistral and Buskett. Dwejra has the Fungus Rock, an inland sea, the azure window and various endemic fauna and flora in addition to particular geological formations and archaeological remains. It is still a largely unspoilt area, as may be seen from the attached photograph/s taken for this occasion by Mr Philip J. Cassar, the National Commission’s executive secretary.

As the world’s population grows and urbanisation creeps into and encroaches on natural spaces, biosphere parks are becoming all the more important ‘for people and nature to co-exist’, as an added input to sustainable development, Professor Frendo added. 

Many biosphere parks are larger than the entire Maltese Islands, but Malta being small, over-populated and over-built, we ‘desperately need ecological open spaces where man and nature can inter-act.’  Malta’s UNESCO National Commission also has ambitious plans for a sizeable nature site dedicated to indigenous flora and fauna, a project for which it has been short-listed.