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U.S. MAB International Program Fact Sheet released by the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Department of State, March 5, 1998.

U.S. MAB cooperates internationally with the MAB Programs of other nations, other international organizations and regional programs. For further information on all of these programs please contact U.S. MAB at usmab@state.gov

The Biosphere Reserve Integrated Monitoring Program (BRIM) was established to share biological, physical and social science information generated by research and monitoring in biosphere reserves with a worldwide scientific community.

U.S. MAB published ACCESS, a directory of the biosphere reserves of EuroMAB (Canada, Europe, and the U.S.) with information on research and monitoring activities and common data bases; and ACCESS 1996, a directory of permanent monitoring plots existing on EuroMAB biosphere reserves. Hard copies of both products are available by request from the U.S. MAB Secretariat.

U.S. MAB and the Smithsonian Institution MAB have developed the BRIM Toolbox, four inventorying and monitoring software programs, MABFauna, MABFlora, BioMon, and Observe, to facilitate this sharing of data.

MABNetAmericas was initiated in collaboration with "Ciencias y Technologia para el Dessarrollo" (CYTED) to develop communication linkages of the scientific data existing on the 100 biosphere reserves in the 17 Western Hemisphere countries. Additional research sites and institutions will be added to MABNetAmericas as they adopt compatible reporting formats, standards, and protocols.

MABNetAmericas was adopted as part of Initiative 31 of the Plan of Action for the Sustainable Development of the Americas by the Hemispheric Summit of Sustainable Development at Santa Cruz del la Sierra, Bolivia, December 1996.

MABFauna/MABFlora are computer software programs that facilitate the standardization of information about biological inventories of animal and plant resources at protected sites. These programs provide a standard format which includes information on the status of species, the sources and reliability of the information, and the level and form of the documentation.

MABFauna and MABFlora are available in a DOS or Windows version. MABFauna is a world inventory. MABFlora is in three regional issues, Russia, US/Canada, and Europe. The manual is available in English only. A "Quick Start" is available in English, Spanish, French, Bahasa, Portuguese, Russian, Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. All downloadable from http://www.mabnet.org.

U.S. MAB is demonstrating MABFauna at international meetings and at training workshops worldwide. You may search the MABFauna database at http://ice.ucdavis.edu/MAB/. MABFlora will be available for search by summer 1998.

NAFTAMAB was created with a Memorandum of Cooperation signed in 1995 by the MAB Programs of Canada, the United Mexican States, and the United States of America. The three MAB Programs agreed to share scientific data collected on their 63 biosphere reserves. They also pledged to publicly share lists of species and biological inventories found in the biosphere reserves; adopt a common reporting format for biodiversity data such as MABFauna and MABFlora; make available vegetative land cover use maps, and explore mechanisms to collaborate with the Model Forest Networks of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.A.

The Northern Sciences Network (NSN) is an organized means of communicating plans, experiences, and research results among the MAB programs with activities in the Arctic region. NSN publishes a quarterly newsletter and holds conferences and workshops on issues of importance to the Arctic area. U.S. MAB is a yearly contributing member of NSN.

For further information please contact:

MAB-NSN Secretariat
Danish Polar Center
Strandgade 100 HDK 1301
Copenhagen Denmark
Fax: (45) 32 88 01 01
E-mail: dapcnsn@pop.denet.dk

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