US and Canadian Biospheres Sign "Twinning" Agreement

Thousand Islands International Bridge between New York and Ontario. St. Lawrence River, U.S.-Canada border.

New bi-national connections are being made in a recently signed Twinning Agreement between the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Network (FABN) in Ontario, Canada and Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network (CABN) in New York and Vermont.

The twin biospheres are united by geography and close ties. Co-located in the Great Lakes
region and St. Lawrence River Watershed on the geological formation known as the Frontenac Axis, FABN and CABN share a strong sense of place with numerous ecological, cultural, social and economic ties.

The partnership has evolved over a period of six years, beginning at the 2013 EuroMAB Conference at Brockville, Ontario, followed by meetings in 2015 and 2017 at the Adirondack Ecological Center (AEC) in Newcomb, NY, culminating in the agreement signed in Burlington, Vermont on October 11, 2019.

Early projects informed the agreement’s development. Queens University and State University New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry came together to sponsor a bi-national, mobile seminar to educate undergraduate and graduate students on the respective biospheres’ natural, cultural and economic features.

The Wild Center, an outdoor environmental education center located within the CABN in Tupper Lake, NY, recently hosted Canadian students from FABN at its Youth Climate Program. These students came away eager to launch a similar youth program in their own biosphere.

As a result, FABN will host its first Youth Climate Summit in April 2020 with support from The Wild Center, and plans to replicate the model in biospheres across the Canadian Biosphere Network.

The FABN and CABN Twinning Agreement supports UNESCO MAB’s strategic goals to:

• Conserve biodiversity, restore and enhance ecosystem services and foster sustainable uses of natural resources;
• Contribute to building sustainable healthy and equitable societies, economies and thriving human settlements;
• Facilitate sustainability science and education for sustainable development; and,
• Support mitigation and adaptation to climate change and other aspects of global environmental change.

FABN and CABN also seek increased engagement and reconciliation with indigenous peoples, recognizing that across their shared lands they have always been living in ways that promote sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and outreach, research and education, consistent with indigenous cultural values. The Twinning Agreement seeks to incorporate indigenous people’s traditional ecological knowledge into management actions.

The personal leadership of Gary Clarke, co-chair of FABN has been invaluable to the establishment of the Twinning Agreement. The visionary concept of biosphere reserves and networks offers practical opportunities to integrate and expand the capacities of local organizations, individuals and governments to cooperatively address urgent local-to-global problems based on shared knowledge and experience. By helping people find common purpose and share reliable information in weaving nature into the economic and cultural fabric of their shared landscapes, biosphere reserves will make important contributions toward achieving a more harmonious polity at the local, national, and global levels.

Brian Houseal, [e-mail] and Kelly Cerialo, [e-mail]
Champlain Adirondack Biosphere Network