Environment & Ecology Quiz: Invasive Species and Wildlife Trade

The correct answer is B, Eichhornia crassipes, the water hyacinth. It is a free-floating plant of South American origin that was brought to India for its attractive flowers. It multiplies very fast and forms dense mats over ponds, canals and wetlands, shutting out light and oxygen, killing fish, blocking navigation and increasing water loss, and its destruction of the water bodies of Bengal earned it the nickname. Option A, lantana, is an invasive shrub of forests and grasslands but it is terrestrial and carries no such name. Option C, Prosopis juliflora or vilayati babool, is a thorny tree of dry regions introduced from Mexico and Central America. Option D, Parthenium hysterophorus, is the congress grass, a terrestrial weed of waste ground notorious for causing skin allergy rather than for choking water bodies.

The correct answer is C, 1973. The text of CITES was agreed by the representatives of eighty countries meeting at Washington in the United States in 1973, which is why the treaty is also called the Washington Convention; it then entered into force on 1 July 1975, and India became a party in 1976. Option A, 1963, is the year the idea of such a convention was first adopted as a resolution by members of the IUCN, not the year of the treaty itself. Option B, 1971, is the year of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, signed at Ramsar in Iran, which is a common distractor. Option D, 1992, is the year of the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, where the Convention on Biological Diversity and the climate convention were opened for signature. Candidates should keep 1971, 1973 and 1992 clearly apart.

The correct answer is A, Appendix I. CITES sorts species into appendices according to how badly trade threatens them. Appendix I holds the species that are threatened with extinction, such as the tiger, the Asian elephant, the one-horned rhinoceros and the red panda, and commercial international trade in their specimens is banned; movement is allowed only in exceptional non-commercial cases with both export and import permits. Option B is wrong because Appendix II covers species that are not yet threatened but could become so if trade is uncontrolled, and trade in them continues under export permits. Option C is wrong because Appendix III lists species that a single party protects within its own territory and for which it has requested the cooperation of other parties. Option D is wrong because CITES has only three appendices.

The correct answer is C, 2007. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau is a multi-disciplinary statutory body created in 2007 under section 38Z of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. It works from New Delhi under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, gathers and shares intelligence on organised wildlife crime, and assists state forest departments, the police and the customs in enforcement. Option A, 1972, is the year of the parent Wild Life (Protection) Act itself, not of the Bureau. Option B, 1992, is the year Project Elephant was launched, a frequent distractor in this group of questions. Option D, 2014, matches no landmark in wildlife enforcement. Remember that the Act of 1972 is the law and the Bureau of 2007 is one of the agencies created under it by later amendment.

The correct answer is B, congress grass. Parthenium hysterophorus reached India from tropical America, reportedly with imported wheat, and spread rapidly over waste ground, roadsides and fallow fields. It is also called carrot grass from the shape of its leaves, and it is a public health problem because its pollen and hairs cause dermatitis, asthma and hay fever. Option A, Siam weed, is the common name of Chromolaena odorata, another American invader of plantations and forest edges. Option C, prickly pear, refers to the cacti of the genus Opuntia, which were brought to India in connection with the cochineal dye insect. Option D, mile-a-minute weed, is Mikania micrantha, a fast-climbing vine that smothers plantations and forest regrowth in the North East and the Western Ghats.

The correct answer is C, Parthenium. Zygogramma bicolorata is a leaf-feeding beetle from Mexico, the native region of Parthenium hysterophorus, and it was introduced in India as a biological control agent because its grubs and adults strip the weed of leaves and check its seed production. Option A is wrong because water hyacinth is controlled biologically by weevils of the genus Neochetina, not by this beetle. Option B is wrong because no single agent has given reliable control of lantana in India, and its management still depends largely on uprooting and on restoring native cover. Option D is wrong because prickly pear, Opuntia, was famously controlled in Australia by the moth Cactoblastis cactorum and in India partly by cochineal insects. Biological control works by pairing a weed with an enemy from its own homeland.

The correct answer is A, paint brushes made from mongoose hair. The mongoose is a protected animal under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, yet its hair was being used to make artists brushes, and Operation Clean Art was the Bureau first country-wide operation directed at a single wildlife article, ending with large seizures of brushes and raw hair. Option B is wrong because the smuggling of freshwater turtles and tortoises was the target of Operation Save Kurma, named from the Sanskrit word for turtle. Option C is wrong because shahtoosh, the wool of the Tibetan antelope, was the subject of Operation Softgold. Option D is wrong because red sanders, the protected timber of the Eastern Ghats, has been tackled through separate drives and state task forces rather than through Operation Clean Art.

The correct answer is C, Azadirachta indica, the neem tree. Neem is native to the Indian subcontinent, so by definition it cannot be an alien species here, however widely it has been planted; a species is alien only outside its natural range. Option A, Lantana camara, is an ornamental shrub from tropical America that now invades dry forests, grasslands and tiger habitat across India. Option B, Mikania micrantha, is the mile-a-minute vine from Central and South America that smothers plantations and natural regeneration in the North East and the Western Ghats. Option D, Prosopis juliflora or vilayati babool, came from Mexico and Central America and has taken over large stretches of arid and semi-arid land, lowering the water table and displacing native thorn scrub. Only neem is Indian in origin.

The correct answer is B, the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act of 2022 brought the parent Act into line with India obligations under CITES, reorganised its schedules and for the first time inserted an express power allowing the Central Government to regulate or prohibit the import, trade, possession and proliferation of invasive alien species. Option A is wrong because the Forest (Conservation) Act deals with the diversion of forest land to non-forest use. Option C is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act governs access to biological resources and benefit sharing, and it was itself amended in 2023 for different purposes. Option D is wrong because the Environment (Protection) Act is the umbrella law under which pollution and environmental standards are notified, not a wildlife trade statute.

The correct answer is A, Achatina fulica. This large land snail is native to East Africa and reached India long ago, probably through the trade in ornamental plants and shells. It feeds on a very wide range of garden and field plants, breeds rapidly and is listed among the worst invasive species of the world. Option B, Clarias gariepinus, is the African catfish, an invasive fish whose culture is banned in India because it preys heavily on native species. Option C, Pila globosa, is the native Indian apple snail of ponds and paddy fields and is therefore not an invader at all. Option D, Spodoptera frugiperda, is the fall armyworm, an American moth whose caterpillars attack maize and which was first reported in Karnataka in 2018.

The correct answer is B, Geneva. The CITES Secretariat is based at Geneva in Switzerland and is administered under the United Nations Environment Programme; it services the Conference of the Parties, maintains the appendices and advises member states on permits and enforcement. Option A, Nairobi, is wrong as the Secretariat location although it is the global headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme itself, which makes it the commonest wrong choice here. Option C, Gland, is wrong because that Swiss town houses the International Union for Conservation of Nature and also the Ramsar Convention Secretariat. Option D, Washington, is wrong but tempting, since the convention was negotiated and signed there in 1973 and is called the Washington Convention for that reason; the city of signature is not the seat of the Secretariat.