MESPOM’09 & CEU EnvSci PhD’15 Alumna Diane Matar, and Associate Professor Brandon Anthony publish an article in PARKS: The International Journal of Protected Areas and Conservation

EnvSci PhD’15 and MESPOM’09 Alum Diane A. Matar, and Associate Professor Brandon P. Anthony publish a peer-reviewed article entitled ‘Implementation of the Periodic Review requirement in the Arab-MAB network: Lessons for improving Biosphere Reserve evaluation’ in the May 2018 Issue (24.1) of PARKS: The International Journal of Protected Areas and Conservation.

The World Network of Biosphere Reserves ­–comprising 669 in 120 countries, brings a large contribution to the achievement of international conservation and sustainable development goals. The UNESCO-Man and Biosphere (MAB) Secretariat assesses the effectiveness of biosphere reserves periodically through a process called the Periodic Review. In this article, the authors present the results of the first regional evaluation of implementation of the Periodic Review process in the Arab network of Biosphere Reserves (also called ArabMAB).

Using a mixed methods approach, the authors identify several challenges to the effective implementation of the Periodic Review process in the Middle East North Africa, based on which they propose recommendations for the improvement of Biosphere Reserves evaluation. In addition, the authors use an innovative approach for document review and evaluation of the Periodic Review reports, which can be transferred and adopted for similar research in other regional networks of the MAB programme.

The article was largely based on the PhD work of Diane Matar supervised by Prof. Anthony in 2012–2015. Dr. Matar and Prof. Anthony continue to collaborate on research extending from the dissertation work, and are preparing several publications on the topic.

Diane is currently working as a Postdoc Research Consultant with Professor Nicole Ardoin’s research group at the Graduate School of Education and Woods Institute for the Environment, at Stanford University in California. She helps oversee the NSF funded Summen (Redwoods) research project that explores people’s perceptions of, and attitudes toward, climate change and related impacts on California’s coastal redwoods.