Environment & Ecology Mixed Quiz: Set 35

The correct answer is B, 1971. The Convention on Wetlands was signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971, which is why the sites designated under it are called Ramsar sites; it came into force in 1975, India became a party in 1982, and World Wetlands Day is observed on 2 February to mark the date of signature. Option A is wrong because 1968 is not associated with any of the major conservation treaties asked in these papers. Option C is wrong because 1979 is the year of the Convention on Migratory Species, signed at Bonn, which deals with migratory animals rather than with wetlands. Option D is wrong because 1992 is the year of the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, which produced the Convention on Biological Diversity and the climate change convention.

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 A, loss and damage from climate impacts. Loss and damage is the third pillar of climate policy, after mitigation and adaptation, and covers harm that can no longer be prevented: land lost to the sea, a crop destroyed by an extreme event, an island made uninhabitable. Small island states had demanded an institution for it for years, and the Warsaw mechanism of 2013 was the first. A dedicated fund was agreed at Sharm el-Sheikh in 2022 and set up at Dubai in 2023. B is handled by the Kyoto mechanisms and by Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. C belongs to REDD-plus and to forest certification bodies outside the convention. D is the business of the Montreal Protocol, a separate treaty on the ozone layer.

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 A, The Book of Indian Birds. Salim Ali wrote this standard field guide, carried out the bird surveys on which several sanctuaries were notified, and was long associated with the Bombay Natural History Society; the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History at Coimbatore bears his name. Option B is wrong because, although he did support the campaign to save the Silent Valley, that is only one episode and not what he is chiefly identified with. Option C is wrong because the Chipko movement of the Garhwal Himalaya is associated with Sunderlal Bahuguna and Chandi Prasad Bhatt and concerned tree felling, not birds. Option D is wrong because Project Tiger, launched in 1973, is associated with Kailash Sankhala as its first director.

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 A, Article 3 of the UNFCCC of 1992. The article directs parties to protect the climate system on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and adds that the developed country parties should take the lead. India and other developing countries rely on it to resist a single uniform obligation for all. B deals with the phasing out of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone depleting substances and uses a different form of differentiation through grace periods. C is the treaty on the conservation of wetlands, signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar. D is a declaration of broad environmental principles that predates the climate convention and does not contain this formulation. The phrase equity and CBDR-RC in a question stem almost always points to the climate convention.

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, Gulf of Mannar. The dugong is a marine mammal that grazes on sea grass, and the sea grass beds of the Gulf of Mannar between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka are its principal habitat in India; the Gulf of Mannar was declared the country's first marine biosphere reserve in 1989 and the dugong is listed in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act. Option A is wrong because the Sundarbans is a mangrove forest identified with the tiger and the estuarine crocodile. Option C is wrong because Gahirmatha is remembered for the olive ridley turtle. Option D is wrong because Bhitarkanika in Odisha is known for the saltwater crocodile and for its mangroves, not for the dugong. Sea grass beds, coral reefs and mangroves are the three habitats a marine protected area guards, and the dugong depends on the first of the three.

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, 2070. Panchamrit, the five nectar elements announced by India at COP26, consists of five hundred gigawatts of non-fossil energy capacity by 2030, meeting half of the country's energy requirement from renewable sources by 2030, reducing projected emissions by one billion tonnes by 2030, reducing the emissions intensity of the economy by forty-five per cent from the 2005 level by 2030, and achieving net zero emissions by 2070. A is the year many developed countries and the European Union have adopted, and it is offered to mislead. B is the year announced by China, which candidates often transfer to India. D appears in no commitment. India argued that a later date is consistent with equity, since its per capita emissions and its historical share are both low.

The correct answer is B, the Alipore Zoological Garden in Kolkata, opened to the public in 1876 and therefore the oldest formally established zoo in the country. Option A is wrong because the National Zoological Park in Delhi dates from 1959 and was planned as a model zoo for the capital. Option C is wrong because the Nehru Zoological Park at Hyderabad was opened in the 1960s and is known for its safari enclosures and nocturnal animal house. Option D is wrong because the Arignar Anna Zoological Park at Vandalur near Chennai, though the largest zoo in India by area, was opened in 1985 after shifting from the older Madras zoo. A related fact often asked alongside is that the Mysuru zoo of 1892 is the second of the old zoos and the Darjeeling zoo the highest in altitude.

The correct answer is A, Harike. The Harike wetland in Punjab, also called Hari-Ke-Pattan, was formed by a barrage at the point where the Beas joins the Sutlej, is the largest wetland of northern India, and is a Ramsar site rich in waterfowl. Option B is wrong because Pong Dam Lake in Himachal Pradesh is a reservoir on the Beas, also a Ramsar site, known for bar-headed geese, but it is not at a river confluence of this kind. Option C is wrong because Sambhar in Rajasthan is the largest inland saline lake of India, visited by flamingos. Option D is wrong because Renuka in Himachal Pradesh is a small natural lake and Ramsar site, famous as a pilgrimage place rather than for its size.

The correct answer is B, the elephant, declared the National Heritage Animal in 2010 in recognition of its place in Indian culture and of the need to protect its habitat and corridors; Project Elephant had already been launched for it in 1992. Option A is wrong because the tiger is the national animal of India, a different designation. Option C is wrong because the lion, though it was the national animal before the tiger replaced it, carries no such title today and survives in the wild only in the Gir forest of Gujarat. Option D is wrong because the Gangetic river dolphin is the National Aquatic Animal, declared in 2009. This set of four titles, with the peacock as the national bird, is among the most frequently asked groups in the subject.

The correct answer is C, every five years. The agreement works on a five-year ambition cycle: parties submit nationally determined contributions, implement them, and then the stocktake assesses where the world stands on mitigation, adaptation and the means of implementation, so that the next round of contributions can be stronger. The first stocktake concluded at COP28 in Dubai in 2023 and found the world off track for the one and a half degree limit. A is the frequency of the Conference of the Parties itself, which is the trap in this question. B matches the biennial transparency reporting cycle more closely than the stocktake. D is the interval of no process under the agreement, and would defeat the purpose of ratcheting ambition. Note that the conference meets yearly while the stocktake arrives only once in five of those meetings.

The correct answer is C, one third. The National Forest Policy of 1952 laid down that about thirty-three per cent of the country's geographical area should carry forest or tree cover, and it broke that national figure into about sixty per cent for the hill and mountain regions, where slopes must be held against erosion and landslides, and about twenty per cent for the plains. The National Forest Policy of 1988 retained the same target while shifting the purpose of forest management from revenue to ecological balance. Option A, one fifth, is the figure prescribed for the plains alone, which is why it is offered here. Option B, one fourth, and option D, one half, do not appear in either policy. The point to remember is that this is a policy goal and not an achievement, and that the Forest Survey of India measures how far the country actually stands from it in the India State of Forest Report published every two years.

The correct answer is B, the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. This Act provides for the declaration of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, lists protected species in its schedules, and, after the amendment of 2002, added two further categories, conservation reserves and community reserves. Option A is wrong because the Indian Forest Act, 1927 deals with reserved and protected forests and the movement of forest produce, not with wildlife areas. Option C is wrong because the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, passed after the Bhopal disaster, is the umbrella law for pollution control and for notifications such as coastal regulation zones. Option D is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 gives effect to the Convention on Biological Diversity and created the biodiversity boards and heritage sites.

The correct answer is B, Sariska. The Alwar district reserve in Rajasthan was found in 2004 and 2005 to have no tigers left, the result of poaching and weak protection. The Tiger Task Force appointed in 2005 examined the failure, and its report led to the statutory National Tiger Conservation Authority in 2006 and to the first relocation of tigers, from Ranthambore to Sariska from 2008. Option A is wrong, though it is the closest distractor: Panna in Madhya Pradesh lost its tigers a few years later and was repopulated in the same way, so the two are often interchanged. Option C is wrong because Palamau, one of the original nine reserves, declined but was not the trigger for the Task Force. Option D is wrong because Dampa in Mizoram was not involved in this episode.

The correct answer is A, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. The panel was created in 1988, four years before the climate convention existed, which is why B is wrong: the IPCC is not an organ of the convention, although its reports set the agenda for every conference and the first assessment report of 1990 led directly to the negotiation of the convention. The panel does no research of its own; it assesses published science through working groups on physical science, impacts and mitigation, and it shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with Al Gore. C has no role in climate science. D are financial institutions, and while the World Bank hosts climate funds it did not create the panel.

The correct answer is C, 500 GW by 2030, the first of the five Panchamrit commitments placed before COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, the others being half of India's energy requirement from renewables by 2030, a billion tonnes off projected emissions by 2030, a 45 per cent cut in the emission intensity of gross domestic product by 2030 against 2005, and net zero by 2070. A is wrong because 175 GW by 2022 was the earlier renewable energy target announced in 2015, a different and much smaller commitment. B is wrong because 450 GW was the figure India spoke of before Glasgow and is the classic distractor; the Panchamrit raised it. D is wrong because no such thousand-gigawatt pledge was made at Glasgow. Note that the 500 GW target counts all non-fossil capacity, so large hydro and nuclear are included along with solar and wind.