Environment & Ecology Mixed Quiz: Set 34

The correct answer is B, Sulphur dioxide. Sulphur dioxide is an air pollutant but it is not counted among the greenhouse gases.

A greenhouse gas is one that lets sunlight through but absorbs the long wave infrared radiation the earth sends back, so it warms the lower atmosphere. The main ones are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and the chlorofluorocarbons. Sulphur dioxide behaves in the opposite way: released by burning coal and by volcanoes, it forms fine sulphate aerosols that reflect sunlight and have a cooling effect, and in moist air it turns into sulphuric acid and causes acid rain.

Option A, ozone, is a greenhouse gas in the troposphere. Option C, carbon dioxide, is the gas most responsible for the human share of warming. Option D, methane, traps far more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide and comes largely from paddy fields, cattle and landfills.

Exam tip: sulphur dioxide causes acid rain and cools; carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone warm.

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 D, Karnataka. The Bankapura Peacock Sanctuary lies within the ruins of Bankapura fort in Haveri district of Karnataka and is one of the very few protected areas in India notified specifically for the Indian peafowl, the national bird. Option A is wrong because Rajasthan, though rich in peafowl, is remembered in this chapter for Keoladeo National Park at Bharatpur and for the Desert National Park, not for a peacock sanctuary. Option B is wrong because Maharashtra's names in this chapter are the Malvan Marine Sanctuary and the mangrove areas of the Konkan coast. Option C is wrong because Madhya Pradesh is associated with tiger reserves such as Kanha and Bandhavgarh and with the National Chambal Sanctuary rather than with a peacock sanctuary.

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, the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in June 1992 and popularly called the Earth Summit, opened three agreements for signature: the climate convention, the Convention on Biological Diversity and Agenda 21. The climate convention entered into force on 21 March 1994, and its annual Conference of the Parties began at Berlin in 1995. A, the Stockholm Conference of 1972, was the first world environment meeting and gave rise to the United Nations Environment Programme, twenty years before the climate convention. C, the Johannesburg summit of 2002, reviewed the Rio commitments but opened no new convention. D produced the Montreal Protocol, which deals with ozone depleting substances and not with greenhouse gas targets.

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, Rajasthan. Keoladeo National Park stands at Bharatpur in eastern Rajasthan and is unusual in being a man-made wetland, created by a ruler of Bharatpur as a duck shooting reserve and later turned into a sanctuary and then a national park. It is both a Ramsar site and a World Heritage Site, and it was famous as the wintering ground of the Siberian crane. Option B is wrong because Gujarat's best known bird wetland is Nal Sarovar, with Thol and Khijadia beside it. Option C is wrong because Haryana's wetland of this kind is Sultanpur National Park near Gurugram. Option D is wrong because Uttar Pradesh is associated with the sarus crane, its state bird, and with wetlands such as Upper Ganga rather than with Keoladeo.

The correct answer is A, the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. The amendment of 1991 inserted the provisions on zoos into that Act, and the Central Zoo Authority was constituted in 1992 to recognise zoos, prescribe standards for animal housing, upkeep and veterinary care and coordinate conservation breeding; a zoo without its recognition cannot operate. Option B is wrong because the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 is the umbrella law under which notifications such as eco-sensitive zones and coastal regulation zones are issued. Option C is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act of 2002 created the National Biodiversity Authority, which deals with access to biological resources and benefit sharing. Option D is wrong because the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 governs the diversion of forest land for non-forest use.

The correct answer is B, COP3 at Kyoto. The protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997 in the Japanese city that gave it its name, and it entered into force on 16 February 2005 once countries accounting for the required share of Annex I emissions had ratified it. Annex I countries accepted an average cut of about five per cent below 1990 levels for the period 2008 to 2012. A, COP1 at Berlin in 1995, only adopted the Berlin Mandate, the decision to begin negotiating such targets. C, COP8 at New Delhi in 2002, adopted the Delhi Declaration linking climate action to development. D, COP13 at Bali in 2007, gave the Bali Action Plan, which started the talks that ended in the Paris Agreement. Remember the pair Kyoto 1997 for adoption and 2005 for entry into force, since both years are asked.

The correct answer is B, 1952. The cheetah is the only large mammal India is known to have lost in historical times, and the government declared it extinct in the country in 1952, a few years after the last wild Asiatic cheetahs were shot. Option A is wrong but is closely linked, because 1947 is the year in which those last cheetahs are believed to have been killed, in the Koriya area of the former Surguja region, now in Chhattisgarh; the declaration came later. Option C is wrong because 1962 has no connection with the cheetah. Option D is wrong because 1972 is the year of the Wild Life (Protection) Act. Hold the two cheetah dates together: 1947 for the last killing and 1952 for the declaration of extinction.

The correct answer is A, Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary. Gahirmatha, on the Odisha coast beside the Bhitarkanika mangroves, is the only turtle sanctuary notified in India and protects the world's largest mass nesting ground of the olive ridley turtle, where the phenomenon of arribada, or mass nesting, takes place. Option B is wrong because the Gulf of Mannar off Tamil Nadu is remembered as India's first marine biosphere reserve and as the stronghold of the dugong. Option C is wrong because the Malvan Marine Sanctuary in Maharashtra protects a small patch of reef and shore rather than turtle rookeries. Option D is wrong because Rani Jhansi Marine National Park lies in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and protects reefs and islands, not a turtle sanctuary. Remember the pairing of species with place: olive ridley at Gahirmatha, dugong in the Gulf of Mannar, saltwater crocodile at Bhitarkanika and tiger in the Sundarbans.

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 C, the Clean Development Mechanism. Under it a country with a Kyoto target financed a project such as a wind farm, a biomass plant or a more efficient kiln in a developing country, and the emissions avoided were issued to it as certified emission reductions that counted towards its own target, while the host country received investment and technology. A, joint implementation, worked the same way but only between two developed countries with targets, so the project had to be in another Annex I country. B, emissions trading, was the simple purchase of surplus assigned amount units from a country that had overachieved, with no project involved. D belongs to the Paris Agreement, where it is a five-yearly review of collective progress and not a credit-earning mechanism at all.

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.

The correct answer is B, Marine National Park, Gulf of Kachchh. Declared in Gujarat in 1980, it was the first area in India to be notified as a marine national park, and it covers a chain of islands carrying coral reefs and mangrove along the Gulf of Kachchh. Option A is wrong because the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park at Wandoor in South Andaman was notified in 1983, after the Gujarat park. Option C is wrong because the Gulf of Mannar holds a different distinction: it was declared India's first marine biosphere reserve in 1989, and the two superlatives are the pair examiners most often swap. Option D is wrong because the Sundarbans, though a mangrove area on the coast, was notified as a national park for the tiger and is not classed as a marine national park.

The correct answer is C, 2022-23. The Union Budget for that year announced the intention, the Government published a Sovereign Green Bonds framework in 2022, and the Reserve Bank of India auctioned the first tranche on the Government's behalf in January 2023, with the proceeds earmarked for renewable energy, clean transport, energy efficiency, sustainable water management and afforestation. A is wrong because in 2018-19 only Indian companies and public sector undertakings had issued green bonds; the sovereign had not. B is wrong because 2020-21 was dominated by pandemic borrowing and carried no green issue. D is wrong because by 2024-25 sovereign green bonds were already an established part of the borrowing calendar rather than a first. Candidates should separate the corporate green bonds that began much earlier from the sovereign issue of January 2023.

The correct answer is C, COP21, held at Paris, where the agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015 and opened for signature in April 2016; it entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its central feature is the nationally determined contribution, written by each country itself and revised every five years, together with the goal of holding warming well below two degrees Celsius. A, COP19 at Warsaw in 2013, created the international mechanism for loss and damage. B, COP20 at Lima in 2014, produced the Lima Call for Climate Action and invited countries to submit intended contributions, which is why it is the favourite distractor here. D, COP24 at Katowice in 2018, agreed on the rulebook for implementing the agreement adopted three years earlier. The agreement is therefore always tied to Paris and to the year 2015 in exam options.

The correct answer is C, Odisha. Chilika is a brackish water lagoon on the Odisha coast, the largest of its kind in Asia, separated from the Bay of Bengal by a long sand bar. The island of Nalaban within it is notified as a bird sanctuary, and Chilika was among the first Indian wetlands to be designated a Ramsar site; it is also known for the Irrawaddy dolphin. Option A is wrong because West Bengal's great coastal wetland is the Sundarbans. Option B is wrong because Andhra Pradesh has Pulicat and Kolleru, and Pulicat, the second largest brackish lagoon of India, is shared with Tamil Nadu. Option D is wrong because Tamil Nadu's names here are Point Calimere and Vedanthangal. A useful pairing is that Chilika is the largest brackish water lagoon of Asia while Pulicat, shared between Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, is the second largest in India.

The correct answer is B, COP16 at Cancun in 2010, with headquarters at Songdo in the Republic of Korea. Copenhagen in 2009 had produced the political pledge of a hundred billion dollars a year by 2020, and the Cancun decisions of the following year created the institution to channel that money, along with the Cancun Adaptation Framework. A names the right pledge but the wrong conference and city. C is wrong on both counts, since Bonn hosts the convention secretariat rather than the fund, and Paris created no new fund. D is invented; Glasgow in 2021 gave the Glasgow Climate Pact and the call to phase down unabated coal, while Nairobi is the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme. Fix the pair in memory as Cancun for the decision and Songdo for the office of the fund.

The correct answer is B, Pitti. Pitti is a tiny uninhabited coral islet in Lakshadweep, notified as the Pitti Bird Sanctuary, and is the breeding ground of sooty terns and other sea birds; it is the only wildlife sanctuary of the territory. Option A is wrong because Nalaban is the island sanctuary inside Chilika Lake in Odisha. Option C is wrong because Nal Sarovar is a shallow freshwater lake in Gujarat, a Ramsar site known for flamingos and pelicans. Option D is wrong because Deepor Beel is a Ramsar site and bird sanctuary on the edge of Guwahati in Assam, fed by the Brahmaputra. All three distractors are genuine bird areas, which is what makes the question a test of location rather than of names.