Empowering marginalized communities in biosphere reserves through a metacoupling approach

The document introduces the metacoupling approach as a framework for managing biosphere reserves, specifically within the context of South Africa's ten UNESCO biosphere reserves. It explains that metacoupling helps identify how resource use in one area affects distant communities and ecosystems, thereby highlighting equity issues. The text describes the three-pillar structure of biosphere reserves—conservation, sustainable economic development, and logistic support—and the three zoning areas: core areas, buffer zones, and transition areas. It asserts that applying this approach allows stakeholders to understand who benefits or suffers from natural resource decisions, facilitating collective governance across jurisdictional and sectoral levels.

• A metacoupling approach enables a systematic understanding of human-nature interactions by revealing how environmental changes and resource use in one location can impact vulnerable ecosystems and communities in other, distant locations.
• South Africa contains ten UNESCO biosphere reserves, which collectively cover 115,732 km2, representing 9.5% of the country's total land mass.
• Biosphere reserves are organized into three distinct zones: strictly protected core areas for conservation, buffer zones for compatible ecological practices, and transition areas for sustainable economic and human activities.
• The application of a metacoupling approach in biosphere reserves helps identify the actors impacted by social-ecological flows and clarifies the winners and losers of natural resource decisions to improve collective governance.

APA

Global Resilience Partnership (n.d.). Empowering marginalized communities in biosphere reserves through a metacoupling approach. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/biospheres-case-study.pdf

Chicago

Global Resilience Partnership. Empowering marginalized communities in biosphere reserves through a metacoupling approach. n.d. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/biospheres-case-study.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Global Resilience Partnership |title=Empowering marginalized communities in biosphere reserves through a metacoupling approach |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/biospheres-case-study.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{globalresiliencepartnershipndempowering, author = {{Global Resilience Partnership}}, title = {{Empowering marginalized communities in biosphere reserves through a metacoupling approach}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/biospheres-case-study.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }