Environment & Ecology Quiz: Environmental Organisations: UNEP, IUCN, WWF and Others

The correct answer is C, 1 and 3 only. BirdLife International is a worldwide partnership of independent national conservation organisations, with its secretariat at Cambridge in the United Kingdom, so statement 1 is correct. It is also the body that identifies and maintains the inventory of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas, the sites that hold key populations of birds, which makes statement 3 correct. Statement 2 is the trap: the concept of biodiversity hotspots was proposed by the British ecologist Norman Myers in 1988 and was later developed by Conservation International, not by BirdLife International. Because statement 2 is wrong, option D, which takes all three, falls away, and option B, which keeps statement 2 while dropping the correct statement 1, is doubly wrong. Option A is incomplete because it leaves out statement 3. Remember the pairing: hotspots belong to Myers and Conservation International, Important Bird Areas belong to BirdLife.

The correct answer is D, National Disaster Management Authority. NDMA is the apex body for disaster management in India, created under the Disaster Management Act of 2005 and chaired by the Prime Minister; it frames policies and plans for prevention, mitigation and preparedness. The partner named in the question, The Energy and Resources Institute, is a New Delhi research body founded in 1974 that works on energy, climate and environmental policy, and such early warning systems are typically built by a research institute with the official authority. Option A substitutes Defence for Disaster, which is a different ministry altogether. Option B changes National to Native, a word no Indian statutory body uses. Option C is the most tempting distractor because NDMA does deal with natural disasters, but the first word of its name is National, not Natural. Read the expansion word by word before marking.

The correct answer is B, Nairobi, Kenya. UNEP was created in 1972 after the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, and the decision to place it at Nairobi made it the first major United Nations programme headquartered in a developing country, a point examiners repeat often. Option A, Geneva, is wrong for UNEP although it is right for several bodies that students confuse with it, namely the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the World Meteorological Organization and the CITES secretariat. Option C, Gland, is the home of IUCN, WWF and the Ramsar Convention secretariat, so it is the classic distractor in any question about environmental headquarters. Option D, New York, is the seat of the United Nations Secretariat and the General Assembly, not of UNEP. Fix the pair UNEP and Nairobi firmly, because almost every exam family asks it.

The correct answer is A, 1948, Fontainebleau, France. IUCN was set up in 1948 at a conference held at Fontainebleau and was then called the International Union for the Protection of Nature; its headquarters later settled at Gland in Switzerland. It is the oldest and largest global environmental network and the only such body whose membership includes both states and non-governmental organisations. Option B gives the birth of WWF, founded in 1961 at Morges in Switzerland, which is a sister organisation sharing the Gland campus, and the two are routinely swapped in objective papers. Option C is the year and city of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which led to the creation of UNEP, not of IUCN. Option D points to the Rio Earth Summit, which produced the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UNFCCC. Learn the sequence 1948, 1961, 1971, 1972 for IUCN, WWF, Greenpeace and UNEP.

The correct answer is C, IUCN. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was begun in 1964 and is the accepted global inventory of the conservation status of plants and animals. It uses nine categories, from Extinct and Extinct in the Wild through Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable to Near Threatened, Least Concern, Data Deficient and Not Evaluated; only the middle three count as threatened. Option A, UNEP, publishes the Global Environment Outlook and the Emissions Gap Report but not the Red List. Option B, WWF, publishes the Living Planet Report with its Living Planet Index, which measures population trends and is the commonest confusion with the Red List. Option D, CITES, is a trade treaty that lists species in three Appendices according to how far trade must be restricted; its listing is a legal instrument, not a measure of extinction risk.

The correct answer is B, World Wide Fund for Nature. WWF has published the Living Planet Report since the late 1990s, and its central measure, the Living Planet Index, tracks the average change in the size of monitored vertebrate populations. WWF, founded in 1961 and based at Gland in Switzerland, also runs the Earth Hour campaign begun in 2007 and carries the giant panda as its logo. Option A, Greenpeace, is a campaigning organisation known for non-violent direct action and its ship Rainbow Warrior; it does not publish an index of this kind. Option C, the United Nations Development Programme, brings out the Human Development Report, which is about income, education and health, a report students often misattribute in this very question. Option D, the IPCC, produces Assessment Reports on climate science and does no population monitoring of its own. Match report to body: Living Planet to WWF, Human Development to UNDP, Emissions Gap to UNEP.

The correct answer is B, the World Meteorological Organization and UNEP. The IPCC was created in 1988 so that governments would have an authoritative, regularly updated assessment of climate science; its secretariat is at Geneva, and it shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. A point worth remembering is that the IPCC does no original research and runs no instruments: it reviews published literature and issues Assessment Reports and special reports. Option A brings in UNESCO, which works on education, science and culture and runs the World Heritage and Biosphere Reserve programmes, but had no part in creating the IPCC. Option C names UNDP and FAO, which deal with development and with food and agriculture respectively. Option D names the World Bank, which finances projects and hosts the Global Environment Facility but did not set up the panel. The WMO link is the key, because climate assessment rests on meteorological data.

The correct answer is C, Montreal, Canada. The Convention on Biological Diversity was opened for signature at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and came into force in 1993; its secretariat works from Montreal, and its two protocols are the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair sharing of benefits. Option A, Bonn, is the seat of the UNFCCC secretariat and also of the Convention on Migratory Species, which is itself called the Bonn Convention, so the city is a strong distractor. Option B, Geneva, holds the CITES secretariat, the IPCC and the World Meteorological Organization. Option D, Nairobi, is the headquarters of UNEP, which administers the CBD but does not house its secretariat. The four-city table, Nairobi for UNEP, Bonn for UNFCCC, Montreal for CBD and Geneva for CITES, is worth memorising as a block.

The correct answer is A, the Convention on Wetlands. It was signed on 2 February 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar, which is why the treaty is always called the Ramsar Convention and why 2 February is kept as World Wetlands Day. It came into force in 1975, its secretariat is at Gland in Switzerland, and a listed site whose ecological character is threatened is placed on the Montreux Record. Option B, CITES, was signed at Washington in 1973 and entered into force in 1975, controlling trade through three Appendices from Geneva. Option C, the Convention on Migratory Species, was concluded at Bonn in 1979 and is therefore known as the Bonn Convention. Option D, the Convention to Combat Desertification, was adopted at Paris in 1994 and has its secretariat at Bonn. Attach each treaty to its city: Ramsar 1971, Washington 1973, Bonn 1979, Paris 1994.

The correct answer is B, the Bombay Natural History Society. Founded in 1883, it is India's oldest conservation body, it works from Mumbai, and besides the popular magazine Hornbill it publishes a scientific journal and runs long-running bird and wildlife surveys; Salim Ali, the country's best known ornithologist, was associated with it for decades. Option A, the Wildlife Institute of India, was set up in 1982 at Dehradun and trains wildlife managers and conducts research for the forest departments. Option C, the Zoological Survey of India, was founded in 1916 and works from Kolkata on the survey and documentation of the country's fauna; the Botanical Survey of India, from 1890, is its plant counterpart in the same city. Option D, the Centre for Science and Environment, is a New Delhi research and advocacy body founded in 1980 and is known for its reports and the magazine Down To Earth.