The volcanic island of Ometepe has become the third Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua, and a tribute to the country’s cultural and biological wealth, said Fauna & Flora International for World Environment Day, Saturday June 5, 2010. The United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Programme on Man and the Biosphere announced the approval and designation of the new Biosphere Reserve in Paris on Wednesday June 2, 2010. “Last September the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua, through its Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, officially nominated the island of Ometepe,” said Salvadora Morales, Fauna & Flora International Ometepe Programme Coordinator. Formed by two volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua, linked by a low strip of wetland, Ometepe is one of the largest freshwater islands in the world.