MAB Programme has been a collective international effort, aiming at developing a basis for the rational use and conservation of the resources of the biosphere and for the improvement of the global relationship between humankind and the environment. In this global effort of four decades, Asia has its own contribution by means of studies, exchange and networking as well as input toward the Seville Strategy (1995) and Madrid Action Plan (2008), two UNESCO instruments for pursuing sustainable ecosystem management. MAB in Asia shifted focus after 1990 from the early research agenda of 1970-80s to Biosphere Reserves (BRs). Now some 100 sites in Asia, BRs constitute priority areas to link ecology and other concerned science disciplines to real management challenges within different socio-economic and cultural contexts, thus connecting global concerns on biodiversity loss and climate change impacts to actions at specific localities. Some lessons learnt are worth of noting for the future Asian MAB agenda: the long process to understand and recognize ecosystem values, complexity of zoning in practices, constraints/opportunities in trans-boundary cooperation, conservation values of degraded and rehabilitated ecosystems, roles of sacred natural sites, traditional knowledge and cultural diversity linkage with biodiversity.