Environment & Ecology Mixed Quiz: Set 28

The correct answer is C, 1980. The Forest (Conservation) Act was passed in 1980 to stop the steady loss of forest land to mining, roads, dams and townships. Its central provision is that no State Government or other authority may dereserve a reserved forest or allow forest land to be used for a non-forest purpose without the prior approval of the Central Government, and a 1988 amendment tightened it further by covering clearing of naturally grown trees for reafforestation. Option A, 1972, is the year of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, which deals with animals, hunting and protected areas. Option B, 1976, is the year the Forty-second Amendment inserted Articles 48A and 51A(g) into the Constitution and moved forests and wildlife to the Concurrent List. Option D, 1984, is the year of the Bhopal gas tragedy, which led to the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986. Keep the chain in order: 1972 wildlife, 1976 constitutional duty, 1980 forest conservation, 1986 environment protection.

The correct answer is B, Earthworm. The earthworm is called the farmer's friend because its work keeps soil fit for crops. As it burrows it loosens the soil and lets air and water reach the roots, and the castings it leaves behind are rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potash, so the topsoil is steadily renewed. Charles Darwin called earthworms nature's ploughmen for this reason. Farmers use the same habit in vermicomposting, where species such as Eisenia fetida turn cattle dung and crop waste into fine manure within a few weeks. A is wrong because the cockroach is a household pest that spoils food and carries germs. C is wrong because the honey bee is useful as a pollinator and for honey, but the name friend of the farmer is not given to it. D is wrong because the housefly spreads diseases such as typhoid and cholera. Exam tip: earthworm, the farmer's friend and nature's plough, used in vermicompost.

The correct answer is B, 1973. Project Tiger began on 1 April 1973 as a centrally sponsored scheme with nine reserves, after the tiger replaced the lion as the national animal and a census showed a steep fall in numbers. Option A is wrong because 1972 is the year of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, the law under which reserves and protected areas are notified; the Act came first and the scheme followed. Option C is wrong because 1980 is the year of the Forest (Conservation) Act, which restricts the diversion of forest land. Option D is wrong because 1992 is the year Project Elephant was launched, and examiners frequently pair the two schemes to see whether a candidate can separate them. Keep the chain in mind: Act of 1972, Project Tiger 1973, Project Elephant 1992, NTCA 2006.

The correct answer is D, Ecotone. An ecotone is the transition zone where two different ecosystems meet and mix, such as the belt between a grassland and a forest, an estuary between a river and the sea, or a mangrove strip between land and ocean. It holds species of both neighbouring communities along with a few of its own, so the number of species and their density are often higher in it. This crowding at the edge is called the edge effect, and species found only in such a belt are called edge species. A is wrong because the ecosphere means the whole living world of the earth taken together with its environment. B is wrong because ecoboundary is not a term used in ecology. C is wrong because ecotwin is not an ecological term either. Exam tip: tie ecotone to the edge effect, and keep ecotone, a zone, apart from ecocline, a gradual gradient.

The correct answer is B, Bishnoi. The Bishnoi community of western Rajasthan follows the twenty-nine tenets laid down by Guru Jambheshwar in the fifteenth century, several of which forbid the felling of green trees and the killing of animals, and it is for this reason that khejri groves and herds of blackbuck survive in the desert districts. In 1730 at Khejarli near Jodhpur, Amrita Devi and a large number of Bishnois were killed while clinging to khejri trees to stop them being cut for the Maharaja's lime kiln, and the national Amrita Devi Bishnoi Wildlife Protection Award commemorates that sacrifice. Option A, the Ramsnehi sect, and option C, the Laldasi sect, and option D, the Niranjani sect, are all devotional traditions of Rajasthan, but none of them is identified with the protection of trees and wildlife. Papers often pair this question with the Chipko movement of the Garhwal Himalaya, which drew openly on the Bishnoi example.

The correct answer is C, Certified Emission Reductions, abbreviated CER, each equal to one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent and issued only after an accredited third party verifies the saving. India hosted a very large number of such projects and was among the world's biggest sellers of CERs. A is wrong because Emission Reduction Units arise from Joint Implementation, where one developed country funds a project in another developed country, not in a developing one. B is wrong because Assigned Amount Units are the emission allowances handed to developed countries themselves under Article 17, traded directly between governments rather than earned by a project. D is wrong because Renewable Energy Certificates are an Indian domestic instrument that lets an obliged buyer meet its renewable purchase obligation without owning a generating plant; they measure electricity from renewable sources, not avoided greenhouse gas, and have no standing under the Kyoto Protocol.

The correct answer is B, the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006. Acting on the report of the Tiger Task Force appointed after the loss of the tigers of Sariska, Parliament amended the Act of 1972 in 2006 to insert Chapter IV-B, which created the National Tiger Conservation Authority and also the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. Option A is wrong because the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 is the umbrella environmental law passed after the Bhopal gas tragedy and sets up no tiger authority. Option C is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 created the National Biodiversity Authority at Chennai and the biodiversity management committees. Option D is wrong because the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 regulates the use of forest land for non-forest purposes. The NTCA is chaired by the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The correct answer is B, 55 dB(A). The Rules of 2000 lay down 55 decibel as the day-time limit and 45 decibel as the night-time limit for a residential area. Reading the full table across is the safest way to answer such questions: industrial 75 by day and 70 by night, commercial 65 and 55, residential 55 and 45, and silence zone 50 and 40. A is wrong because 45 decibel is the night-time limit for the same residential zone, and the swapping of day and night values is the usual trap. C is wrong because 65 decibel is the day-time limit for a commercial area. D is wrong because 75 decibel is the day-time limit for an industrial area, the highest of the four zones. Day runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The correct answer is D, Madhya Pradesh. Successive assessments by the Forest Survey of India have placed Madhya Pradesh first among the States in the absolute area under forest cover, a position it owes to its very large size and to the extensive teak and sal forests of the Satpura, Vindhya and Baghelkhand tracts. Option C, Arunachal Pradesh, is the usual second in area and it leads several States in the share of its own geographical area under forest, which is the distinction the question is testing: largest area is not the same as highest percentage. Option B, Chhattisgarh, also carries dense sal forests and stands among the leading States but not at the top. Option A, Kerala, has rich tropical evergreen forests in the Western Ghats but is far too small to lead in area. Remember the pairing as largest forest area in Madhya Pradesh, and the highest proportion of area under forest in the small hill States of the north east.

The correct answer is B, the soil is already present. Primary succession starts on a surface that has never held life, a cooled lava flow, a bare rock or a fresh sand dune, and the slowest part of the whole process there is the making of soil: rock has to be weathered grain by grain and organic matter has to accumulate from the dead pioneers, which takes a very long time. Secondary succession starts where an existing community was destroyed by fire, flood, felling or cultivation, but the soil, with its nutrients, its seed bank and its microbes, survived. Plants can therefore root at once and the sere runs to its climax much sooner. Option A is wrong because secondary succession usually begins on land, and starting in water describes hydrarch succession, which is a different classification. Option C is wrong because secondary succession also has a pioneer community, typically fast growing weeds and grasses. Option D is wrong because climate decides which climax is reached, not how fast a sere moves.

The correct answer is B, Jim Corbett National Park. It was notified in 1936 as Hailey National Park, the first national park in India, was later renamed after the hunter turned conservationist Jim Corbett, and was among the nine reserves with which Project Tiger started in 1973. Option A is wrong because Kanha in Madhya Pradesh, though one of the first nine reserves and the home of the hard-ground barasingha, was notified as a national park in 1955. Option C is wrong because Bandipur in Karnataka was also among the first nine but is younger as a park. Option D is wrong because Kaziranga in Assam, famous for the one-horned rhinoceros, became a tiger reserve only in 2006, long after Project Tiger began. The safe pairing to memorise is Corbett with 1936 and with Uttarakhand.

The correct answer is C, Pseudomonas and Thiobacillus. Denitrification is the reduction of nitrate to nitrogen gas, which escapes to the atmosphere and completes the nitrogen cycle; it is carried out by these bacteria in waterlogged soils where oxygen is scarce, and it is the reason farmers lose nitrogen from flooded fields. Option A is wrong because Nitrosomonas and Nitrococcus oxidise ammonia to nitrite, the first step of nitrification. Option B is wrong because Azotobacter and Clostridium are free living nitrogen fixers, which bring nitrogen in rather than send it out. Option D is wrong because Nostoc and Anabaena are cyanobacteria and also fix nitrogen, Anabaena notably in association with the fern Azolla in rice fields. Denitrification is the only step of the cycle that moves nitrogen out of the soil and back to the air.

The correct answer is A, Uttarakhand. The movement began in 1973 in the Chamoli district of the Garhwal Himalaya, which was then part of Uttar Pradesh and has been in the new State of Uttarakhand since 2000. Villagers, and above all the women of Reni village led by Gaura Devi, embraced the trees so that contractors could not fell them, and Sunderlal Bahuguna and Chandi Prasad Bhatt carried the demand forward until a ban on green felling above a certain altitude was ordered. Option B, Himachal Pradesh, has its own forest protection traditions but not Chipko. Option C, Karnataka, is the home of the Appiko movement of 1983 in the Western Ghats, led by Panduranga Hegde, which is the southern parallel to Chipko and is often set as a distractor here. Option D, Assam, is unconnected with it. The word chipko means to cling, and appiko means to hug in Kannada.

The correct answer is D, aquifer. An aquifer is a body of rock or loose sediment that is both saturated with groundwater and permeable enough to let that water move freely, so a well sunk into it keeps yielding water. Sand, gravel and fractured sandstone or limestone make good aquifers; clay holds water but will not release it at a useful rate, and such a layer is called an aquiclude. An unconfined aquifer is open to the surface and is recharged directly by rain, while a confined aquifer is sealed between impermeable layers and can be under enough pressure to give an artesian well. Option A is wrong because karst is the cave-and-sinkhole landscape produced where limestone dissolves, not the water-bearing unit itself. Option B is wrong because an estuary is the mouth of a river where fresh water meets the sea. Option C is wrong because a reservoir stores water on the surface behind a dam. Exam tip: an aquifer yields water, an aquiclude holds it back.

The correct answer is B, Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve. Spread across the Nallamala hills in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana along the Krishna river, it is the largest tiger reserve in the country by area, and its division between two States after 2014 is itself a question. Option A is wrong because the Sundarbans in West Bengal, though unique as the only mangrove tiger habitat, is far smaller. Option C is wrong because Melghat in the Satpura ranges of Maharashtra, one of the first nine reserves, is large but not the largest. Option D is wrong because Namdapha in Arunachal Pradesh, notable for being home to four big cats, is also smaller. The companion fact is the smallest reserve, Bor in the Wardha district of Maharashtra. Remember also that this reserve lies in the Nallamala hills along the Krishna river and that the Srisailam dam divides it, a detail papers use to disguise the name.

The correct answer is A, Reduced inequalities. The United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015, with 17 goals and 169 targets, and Goal 10 is Reduced Inequalities. It asks countries to cut inequality of income and of opportunity within and among nations, which is why it covers wages, social protection, safe migration and a bigger voice for developing countries in global institutions. The goals replaced the eight Millennium Development Goals, which ran from 2000 to 2015. In India progress is tracked by the NITI Aayog SDG India Index. B is wrong because Zero Hunger is Goal 2. C is wrong because Climate Action is Goal 13. D is wrong because Decent Work and Economic Growth is Goal 8. Exam tip: fix the easy anchors in memory, Goal 1 No Poverty, Goal 2 Zero Hunger, Goal 10 Reduced Inequalities, Goal 13 Climate Action and Goal 17 Partnerships.

The correct answer is B, July. Van Mahotsav is observed in the first week of July, which is chosen because the monsoon has arrived over most of the country by then and a newly planted sapling has the best chance of surviving. It was started in 1950 on the initiative of K. M. Munshi, then Union Minister for Agriculture and Food, as a people's festival of tree planting rather than a departmental exercise. Option A, March, carries World Forestry Day on the twenty-first and World Water Day on the twenty-second, but not Van Mahotsav. Option C, October, carries Wildlife Week in its first week, which is a separate observance devoted to animals. Option D, December, is not associated with any national planting programme and falls in the dry season when survival of saplings is poor. Examiners frequently place Wildlife Week and Van Mahotsav in the same option set, so fix July for trees and October for wildlife.

The correct answer is C, Maharashtra. Bor Tiger Reserve lies in the Wardha district of Maharashtra, near Nagpur, and is the smallest tiger reserve in the country; it is part of the central Indian landscape that also holds Tadoba-Andhari, Pench, Melghat and Navegaon-Nagzira. Option A is wrong because Madhya Pradesh has Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Panna, Satpura, Pench and Sanjay-Dubri, but not Bor. Option B is wrong because Chhattisgarh has Indravati, Udanti-Sitanadi and Achanakmar. Option D is wrong because Odisha has Simlipal and Satkosia. A trap worth noting is Pench, which is a tiger reserve in both Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, so a question naming only Pench is incomplete unless the state is given. Bor was first a wildlife sanctuary and was raised to the status of a tiger reserve later, which is why older lists of reserves do not carry its name at all, and candidates who learnt only the older list miss this question.

The correct answer is A, Panduranga Hegde. The Appiko movement started in 1983 in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, in the Western Ghats, where villagers walked into the forest and hugged trees marked for felling by contractors; Panduranga Hegde organised it after studying the Chipko movement of the Himalaya. Option B, Medha Patkar, is identified with the Narmada Bachao Andolan against the submergence caused by large dams on the Narmada. Option C, Baba Amte, worked for people affected by leprosy and also joined the Narmada struggle, but he did not lead Appiko. Option D, Sunderlal Bahuguna, is the best known face of Chipko in Uttarakhand and of the campaign against the Tehri dam, and he is placed here precisely because candidates confuse the two movements. The simple mapping to carry into the hall is Chipko with Bahuguna and Bhatt in the Himalaya, and Appiko with Hegde in the Western Ghats.

The correct answer is B, West Bengal. Buxa Tiger Reserve lies in the Alipurduar district of north Bengal in the Dooars, against the Bhutan border, and was notified in 1983. It forms a corridor between the forests of north Bengal and Manas in Assam, which is why the movement and release of tigers there is followed closely. Option A is wrong because Assam has Manas, Kaziranga, Nameri and Orang. Option C is wrong because Sikkim has no tiger reserve; its famous protected area is the Khangchendzonga National Park, a World Heritage Site. Option D is wrong because Bihar's tiger reserve is Valmiki, in the West Champaran district on the Nepal border. West Bengal's other tiger reserve is the Sundarbans, the only mangrove tiger habitat in the world. The reserve takes its name from the Buxa fort inside it, and the Jayanti and Raidak rivers flow through its forests, details that sometimes appear in state-level papers.