Biodiversity and Its Conservation: Hotspots and Laws

The correct answer is A, Norman Myers, the British ecologist who put forward the idea in 1988 to direct scarce conservation money to the places where it would save the most species. A region qualifies when it is exceptionally rich in species found nowhere else and has already lost most of its original vegetation.

Option B, Charles Darwin, gave the theory of evolution by natural selection and has no connection with this classification. Option C, Robert Whittaker, is a real trap because he did give the terms alpha, beta and gamma diversity, which belong to the same chapter, and he is also remembered for a widely used classification of living organisms into five kingdoms. Option D, Alexander von Humboldt, described how species richness rises with the area of a region. Four hotspots extend into India: the Himalaya, Indo-Burma, the Western Ghats with Sri Lanka, and Sundaland.

The correct answer is C, the Eastern Ghats. They are a broken and comparatively dry hill chain and do not meet the twin tests of exceptional endemism and severe threat that define a hotspot.

Option A, the Himalaya, option B, Indo-Burma, which covers the north-east beyond the Himalayan range, and option D, the Western Ghats together with Sri Lanka, are three of the four hotspots that extend into India. The fourth is Sundaland, which covers the Nicobar group of islands. Papers set this question as an odd one out and the usual wrong options are the Eastern Ghats and the Aravallis, both of which sound plausible to a candidate who has learned only that hotspots are hilly. The Western Ghats are the one to remember for endemism, since the lion-tailed macaque and many amphibians live there and nowhere else.

The correct answer is B, the Earth Summit held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Convention has three objectives: the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

Option A, the Stockholm Conference of 1972, was the first great United Nations conference on the human environment and led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme. Option C, the Kyoto Conference of 1997, produced the protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and belongs to the climate change chapter, not this one. Option D, the Ramsar Conference of 1971, produced the convention on wetlands. Two protocols follow the Rio convention itself: the Cartagena Protocol of 2000 on biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol of 2010 on access and benefit sharing.

The correct answer is B, the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, notified in 1986. It spreads across the meeting point of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka in the Western Ghats and takes in several well known national parks and sanctuaries within its area.

Option A, Nanda Devi in Uttarakhand, option C, the Sundarbans in West Bengal, and option D, the Gulf of Mannar off the Tamil Nadu coast, are all biosphere reserves of India but all were declared later than the Nilgiri. The question is almost always set on which came first, so the pair to fix is Nilgiri and 1986. Remember also the framework these reserves belong to, the Man and the Biosphere Programme launched by UNESCO in 1971, and the three zones of every such reserve, namely the core, the buffer and the transition zone.

The correct answer is A, the core, buffer and transition zones. The core zone is legally protected and left undisturbed, with no human activity allowed. The buffer zone around it permits research, education and limited use of resources that does not damage the core. The transition zone is the outermost, where settlements, farming and other activities of local people carry on.

Option B mixes up two different kinds of protected area; a sanctuary and a national park are declared under the Wildlife (Protection) Act and are not zones of a biosphere reserve, although such areas often lie inside one. Options C and D are invented sets of names with no standing in the scheme. The three zone design is what allows a biosphere reserve to conserve strictly at the centre while letting people continue their livelihoods at the edge, which is why the model is described as conservation with development.

The correct answer is B, 1972. The Wildlife (Protection) Act provides the legal basis for declaring national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, lists protected species in its schedules, and prohibits hunting and trade in the species it covers.

Option C, 1980, is the year of the Forest (Conservation) Act, which restricts the use of forest land for non-forest purposes. Option D, 1986, is the year of the Environment (Protection) Act, the umbrella law passed after the Bhopal gas tragedy, and also the year the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve was notified. Option A, 1962, has no such statute attached to it. These three years, 1972, 1980 and 1986, are asked in rotation and are best learned together with Project Tiger in 1973, Project Elephant in 1992 and the Biological Diversity Act in 2002.

The correct answer is A, wetlands. The convention was adopted in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar, from which it takes its name, and it provides for the listing of wetlands of international importance and for their wise use by the countries that sign it.

Option B, deserts, are the concern of the convention on combating desertification. Option C, tropical forests, have no single convention of this kind, although they are covered by the wider Convention on Biological Diversity. Option D is too narrow, since coral reefs may indeed be listed but the convention covers marshes, lakes, rivers, mangroves, estuaries and peatlands as well. Wetlands matter out of proportion to their area because they recharge groundwater, control floods, filter pollutants and shelter migratory birds, which is why they are sometimes called the kidneys of the landscape.

The correct answer is C, Critically Endangered. Among species that still survive in the wild this is the most serious category, given to those facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the immediate future.

Option B, Endangered, comes next, and option A, Vulnerable, next after that; these three together are called the threatened categories. Option D, Near Threatened, is a milder warning for a species that is close to qualifying as threatened but does not yet. The full sequence in descending order of threat is Extinct, Extinct in the Wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, Near Threatened and Least Concern, with Data Deficient and Not Evaluated for species that cannot yet be placed. The list is maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, founded in 1948 and based at Gland in Switzerland.

The correct answer is B, 1973. Project Tiger was launched to protect the tiger by conserving the habitat it needs, and because the tiger sits at the top of the food chain, saving it protects the whole forest below it. Such a species is called an umbrella species.

Option D, 1992, is the year Project Elephant began, and the two are regularly offered together to see whether the candidate can separate them. Option A, 1971, is the year of the Ramsar Convention and of the Man and the Biosphere Programme. Option C, 1982, has no such scheme attached to it. Note also the year immediately before Project Tiger: the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972 created the legal machinery of parks and sanctuaries, and the project was built on it the following year.

The correct answer is C, a seed bank. Ex-situ conservation means protecting a species away from its natural habitat, and a seed bank does exactly that by storing seeds under controlled temperature and humidity for future use. Zoological parks, botanical gardens, gene banks and cryopreservation facilities belong to the same group.

Option A, a national park, option B, a wildlife sanctuary, and option D, a sacred grove, are all in-situ, that is, they protect the species where it naturally lives, saving the whole ecosystem along with it. Sacred groves are patches of forest preserved by village custom and dedicated to a local deity, and they have conserved rare plants for centuries without any law behind them. In-situ conservation is always preferred; ex-situ is the second line, used when a population has grown too small or its habitat too damaged.

The correct answer is B, 22 May. The day marks the adoption of the text of the Convention on Biological Diversity and is used each year to draw attention to the loss of species and habitats.

Option A, 22 April, is Earth Day. Option C, 5 June, is World Environment Day, which commemorates the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the human environment in 1972 and is the date candidates most often choose here by mistake. Option D, 2 October, is observed as the International Day of Non-Violence and has no environmental meaning. Important days are a small but certain source of marks in this subject, so learn these four together, and add 21 March for the International Day of Forests and 2 February for World Wetlands Day, which marks the signing of the Ramsar Convention.

The correct answer is A, habitat loss and fragmentation. When forests are cleared, wetlands drained and grasslands ploughed, species lose the space they need, and the fragments that survive are often too small to support large animals or to allow populations to mix and breed.

Option D, over-exploitation, is the second member of the evil quartet and covers overfishing and the hunting of animals for skin, horn or bone. Option C, invasive alien species, covers organisms brought from elsewhere that crowd out native ones, such as water hyacinth in Indian waterbodies. Option B, co-extinction, follows when a species disappears and takes with it those that depended on it, such as a parasite or a pollinator. All four together are called the evil quartet, and examiners ask both for the list and for which member stands first, so fix habitat loss as the leading cause.