Eco-Sensitive Zones, Western Ghats and CRZ: Exam Notes

The correct answer is C, the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change notifies an Eco-Sensitive Zone using the power in Section 3(2)(v) of that Act, read with Rule 5(1) of the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986, which lets the central government restrict industries and operations in an area it treats as fragile. Option A is wrong because the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 creates the National Park or Sanctuary itself and governs what happens inside it, not the belt of land around it. Option B is wrong because the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 only controls the diversion of forest land to non-forest use and says nothing about zones around protected areas. Option D is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 deals with access to biological resources, benefit sharing and biodiversity heritage sites, a different instrument altogether.

The correct answer is C, 2012. The Western Ghats were added to the World Heritage List in 2012 as a serial natural property, that is, a single listing made up of thirty-nine separate sites scattered through Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra rather than one continuous block of land. They qualified on the criterion of outstanding natural value, the very high number of species found only there and the role of the chain in driving the south-west monsoon. Option A is wrong, though 2004 is worth remembering for the listing of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. Option B is wrong because no Indian natural site was inscribed in 2008. Option D is wrong because the natural listing of 2016 was the Khangchendzonga National Park in Sikkim, a mixed site, and candidates often confuse the two.

The correct answer is B, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel under Madhav Gadgil. Its report of 2011 held that the whole range deserved protection and divided it into three graded zones, ESZ-1, ESZ-2 and ESZ-3, with the strictest ban on mining, quarrying and large projects in ESZ-1, and proposed a Western Ghats Ecology Authority to supervise the regime. Option A is wrong because the Kasturirangan group was appointed afterwards, in response to objections from the states, and narrowed the protected share to about 37 per cent of the Ghats. Option C is wrong because the Swaminathan Commission reported on the problems of farmers, not on the Ghats. Option D is wrong because the Tiwari Committee is remembered for recommending the machinery that became the Department of Environment, not for the Western Ghats.

The correct answer is C, about 37 per cent. The group that K. Kasturirangan headed reported in 2013 and used satellite imagery to separate the natural landscape of the Ghats from the cultivated and built-up land. It then recommended that only the natural part, close to sixty thousand square kilometres and roughly 37 per cent of the whole chain, be declared ecologically sensitive, with mining, quarrying, thermal power stations, red-category industries and large townships prohibited inside it. Option A and option B are wrong because they understate the recommended area and match no report on the Ghats. Option D is wrong because treating the entire range as sensitive was the Gadgil panel's position of 2011, and it was precisely the objection of the states to that position which led to the appointment of the Kasturirangan group.

The correct answer is C, 500 metres. The Coastal Regulation Zone notification fixes the landward limit of the regulated belt at 500 metres from the High Tide Line along the sea, and that figure has stayed the same through the notifications of 1991, 2011 and 2019. Option A is wrong, but it is the figure to remember for a different line: along rivers, creeks and backwaters influenced by the tide the zone is 100 metres or the width of the water body, whichever is less. Option B is wrong, although 200 metres was the No Development Zone fixed for rural CRZ-III areas, which the 2019 notification reduced to 50 metres for densely populated rural stretches. Option D is wrong because no CRZ notification has used a landward limit of one kilometre. Separating the 500 metre zone from the 100 metre creek belt is the usual trap.

The correct answer is A, CRZ-I. This category holds the ecologically sensitive stretches of the coast, and the notification lists mangroves, coral reefs and coral areas, sand dunes, salt marshes, mudflats, biologically active areas and the nesting grounds of turtles and birds in its sub-category CRZ-I-A, where construction is effectively barred. The intertidal belt between the Low Tide Line and the High Tide Line is CRZ-I-B. Option B is wrong because CRZ-II covers coastal areas that are already developed up to or close to the shoreline and lie inside municipal limits. Option C is wrong because CRZ-III covers relatively undisturbed rural areas, which are split into the densely populated III-A and the rest, III-B. Option D is wrong because CRZ-IV is the water area itself, from the Low Tide Line out to twelve nautical miles.

The correct answer is C, rainwater harvesting and organic farming. Eco-Sensitive Zone notifications sort activities into three lists, and the permitted list encourages exactly these practices along with the agriculture and horticulture that local people already carry on, the use of renewable energy and the adoption of green technology, because the purpose of the zone is to limit damaging industry, not to end village life. Option A is wrong because commercial mining, stone quarrying and stone crushing units are in the prohibited list, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held for areas around protected forests. Option B is wrong because saw mills and the commercial use of firewood are also prohibited. Option D is wrong because red-category industries, the most polluting class in the pollution control board's own grading, are barred from such zones.

The correct answer is C, Kerala. Anamudi rises to 2,695 metres in the Anaimalai or Elephant hills of Idukki district in Kerala and is the highest point not only of the Western Ghats but of the whole of peninsular India, higher than anything south of the Himalayas. It stands inside the Eravikulam National Park, known for the Nilgiri tahr. Option A is wrong because the tallest peak of the Ghats in Karnataka is Mullayanagiri, near Chikmagalur, far lower than Anamudi. Option B is wrong because the best known Tamil Nadu summit in the chain is Doddabetta in the Nilgiris at about 2,637 metres, the figure examiners put beside Anamudi to confuse candidates. Option D is wrong because Kalsubai, the highest point in Maharashtra, reaches only about 1,646 metres.

The correct answer is B, 1991. The first Coastal Regulation Zone notification was issued in February 1991 under the Environment (Protection) Act, declaring the coastal stretches and the waters influenced by the tide as a regulated zone and classifying them for the first time. Option A is wrong because 1986 is the year of the parent Act, the Environment (Protection) Act, under which the notification was later issued, and mixing up the Act with the notification is the standard mistake here. Option C is wrong because 2011 was the first comprehensive revision, which brought in the hazard line and separate rules for Kerala backwaters and Goa, and Option D is wrong because 2019 is the current notification, which split CRZ-III into the densely populated III-A with a fifty metre No Development Zone and the rest as III-B.

The correct answer is B, the Wildlife Conservation Strategy, 2002. That strategy asked that land falling within ten kilometres of the boundaries of National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries be notified as ecologically fragile, and the National Wildlife Action Plan carried the same thought forward, which is how the ten kilometre figure entered the discussion on Eco-Sensitive Zones. In practice the width is decided case by case and may be far less than ten kilometres. Option A is wrong because the National Forest Policy of 1988 is remembered for the goal of one third of the land area under forest cover and for putting conservation before revenue. Option C is wrong because the National Water Policy concerns the pricing and sharing of water. Option D is wrong because the CRZ notification deals with the coast, not with buffers around protected areas.

The correct answer is B, the National Coastal Zone Management Authority. It was constituted under the Environment (Protection) Act to advise the central government on coastal matters and to work with the State and Union Territory Coastal Zone Management Authorities, which examine proposals and prepare the Coastal Zone Management Plans that draw the High Tide Line and the zone boundaries on the map. Option A is wrong because the Central Pollution Control Board works on effluent and emission standards under the Water and Air Acts and grades industries into categories, but does not administer the CRZ. Option C is wrong because the National Green Tribunal decides disputes and appeals on environmental law, including CRZ violations, after the fact, instead of running the clearance system. Option D is wrong because the Survey of India maps the country and does not grant coastal clearances.

The correct answer is A, the Nilgiris and the Anaimalai hills. The Palghat gap, about thirty kilometres wide in Palakkad district of Kerala, is the broadest break in the whole chain and carries the road and the railway line that join Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu to Palakkad and Thrissur in Kerala. Because the Ghats fall away there, the gap also lets the south-west monsoon push inland and influences the rainfall of the Coimbatore plateau. Option B is wrong because the narrower Shencottah gap, not the Palghat gap, lies between the Cardamom hills and the Agasthyamalai group in the far south. Option C is wrong because Sahyadri is simply another name for the northern Western Ghats and no major gap separates it from the Nilgiris. Option D is wrong because both these ranges are in Karnataka, well north of the gap.