Environment & Ecology GK Questions with Answers – Page 12

Mangroves matter for climate resilience because they break storm surges and support coastal livelihoods; the other two statements describe things mangroves do not do.

The Gangetic Plain zone covers the upper and lower Ganga plains including the Terai belt along the foot of the Himalaya, and Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh protects its swamp deer or barasingha along with tiger and, after reintroduction, rhinoceros.

The North-East India zone has two parts, the Brahmaputra valley and the north-eastern hills, and Kaziranga lies in the valley part, where annual flooding maintains tall wet grasslands that support the one-horned rhinoceros, wild buffalo, swamp deer and hog deer.

Gir in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat falls in the Gujarat-Rajwara province of the Semi-Arid zone, a belt of thorn and dry deciduous forest between the desert and the Deccan, which also holds Ranthambore, Sariska and the blackbuck grasslands of Velavadar.

The Islands zone, made up of the Andaman and Nicobar group and Lakshadweep, accounts for only about 0.03 per cent of the area of India, the smallest share of any zone, yet it holds coral reefs and species found nowhere else, such as the Narcondam hornbill and the Nicobar megapode…

The Indian Desert zone has two parts, the sandy Thar of Rajasthan and the salt wastes of Kachchh in Gujarat, and the Indian wild ass or khur survives only in the Little Rann of Kachchh, protected in the Wild Ass Sanctuary.

Dachigam National Park near Srinagar, in the Himalaya biogeographic zone, is the last stronghold of the hangul, the Kashmir stag, which is the only surviving race of the red deer group in the Indian subcontinent and the state animal of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Western Ghats zone includes the hill chain and the Malabar coastal plain, and its wet evergreen forests and high shola grassland mosaic hold a very high share of endemic species, among them the lion-tailed macaque of the rainforest canopy and the Nilgiri tahr of the Eravikulam grasslands.

The sundari is a mangrove tree of the tidal deltaic forests of the Coasts biogeographic zone, and the Sundarbans of the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta take their name from it; its wood is hard and durable, and like other mangroves it has salt tolerant roots and breathing roots in the waterlogged mud.

The Trans-Himalaya is the belt lying beyond the Great Himalaya in Ladakh, Lahaul-Spiti and northern Sikkim; it is a cold desert because it stands in the rain shadow of the high ranges, and it is the one Indian zone whose fauna, such as the kiang, wild yak and black-necked crane…

Nokrek lies in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya and represents the North-East India biogeographic zone in the network of biosphere reserves; it is known for the wild citrus relative called the Indian wild orange and for the hoolock gibbon.

The Deccan Peninsula zone covers about forty-two per cent of the country, roughly two-fifths, stretching over the central highlands, Chota Nagpur, the eastern highlands and the Deccan plateau, and it carries most of India sal and teak forests and tiger reserves.

W. A. Rodgers and H. S. Panwar of the Wildlife Institute of India proposed the ten-zone biogeographic classification in 1988 while planning a representative wildlife protected area network for the country, and the ten zones with their biotic provinces are still the official framework.

Section 51 of the Act prescribes this enhanced punishment, along with a fine, for offences against animals given the highest protection, and the amendment of 2022 raised the monetary penalties further.

Article 252 allows Parliament to legislate on a State subject for two or more States when the legislatures of those States pass resolutions asking it to do so, and the law then applies to those States and to any other State that adopts it later.

The peacock is the national bird of India and was placed in Schedule I, the group given the highest protection, so it could never be treated as vermin.

The amendment of 1991 inserted Chapter IVA into the Act and created the Central Zoo Authority, which lays down standards for housing and upkeep of animals, recognises or derecognises zoos and regulates the exchange of animals between them.

That amendment inserted Section 36A for conservation reserves, usually declared on government land next to a national park or sanctuary, and Section 36C for community reserves, declared on private or community land where people volunteer to protect wildlife.

The National Board for Wild Life was created by the amendment of 2002 under Section 5A of the Act as the apex advisory body on wildlife, and the Prime Minister chairs it.

Section 35 empowers the State Government to declare an area of adequate ecological or zoological importance as a national park, where no grazing is permitted and no rights of any person are allowed to continue.