Everglades National Park was designated an International Biosphere Reserve on October 26, 1976. International Biosphere Reserves are a project of the Man and the Biosphere program of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Reserves are protected samples of the world's major ecosystem types. These sites are standards against which we can measure human impact on our environment and predict its probable effects. There are currently 563 reserves in 109 countries.
Everglades National Park became a World Heritage Site on October 26, 1979. World Heritage Sites are also designated by UNESCO under the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. By 2010, the World Heritage Convention included 187 nations which had ratified the agreement and placed more than 911 sites on the World Heritage List.
The Everglades was designated as a Wetland of International Importance on June 4, 1987. Known popularly as the "Ramsar Convention", the Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty which provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. There are presently 160 parties to the Convention, with 1929 wetland sites, designated for inclusion in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance.
