Which was the first biosphere reserve to be set up in India?

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 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.