With reference to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, which of the following is SDG 10?

The correct answer is B, the Forest Rights Act of 2006. Its full name is the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, and it recognises individual rights over land that such families were cultivating, community rights over grazing grounds and water bodies, and rights over minor forest produce, while making the gram sabha the authority that verifies claims. Option A, the Indian Forest Act of 1927, is the colonial parent statute that classifies forests as reserved, protected and village forests and treats most local use as a privilege rather than a right. Option C, the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, deals with the protection of species, national parks and sanctuaries. Option D, the Environment Protection Act of 1986, is the umbrella law passed after the Bhopal tragedy and covers pollution and environmental clearance generally. The 2006 Act is often asked together with the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act of 1996.

The correct answer is D, very dense forest. The Forest Survey of India divides forest cover by the proportion of ground shaded by the tree canopy. Above seventy per cent the patch is very dense forest; from forty up to seventy per cent it is moderately dense forest; from ten up to forty per cent it is open forest; and below ten per cent it is scrub, which is counted separately and not as forest cover. Option A, open forest, therefore belongs to the ten to forty band and makes up a large share of the recorded cover in India. Option B, scrub, is the degraded category below ten per cent. Option C, moderately dense forest, is the forty to seventy band. A connected definition worth learning is that any patch of one hectare or more with more than ten per cent canopy is counted as forest cover whatever its legal status, which is why orchards and plantations can enter the figure.

The correct answer is B, Dehradun. The Forest Survey of India, set up in 1981, has its headquarters at Dehradun in Uttarakhand, the city that is also home to the Forest Research Institute and the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy, which makes Dehradun the centre of forestry work in the country. The organisation maps forest and tree cover from satellite imagery and publishes the India State of Forest Report every two years, grading cover as very dense, moderately dense, open forest and scrub by canopy density. Option A, New Delhi, is the seat of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, which is the parent ministry but not the survey itself. Option C, Bhopal, hosts the Indian Institute of Forest Management, a separate institution that trains forest managers. Option D, Coimbatore, has the Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding. Questions on forestry institutions and their locations are common, so keep these four apart.

The correct answer is A, West Bengal. In the early 1970s, in the Arabari range of the Midnapore district of West Bengal, foresters stopped treating villagers as encroachers and instead gave them a share in the protection and in the produce of a degraded sal forest; the forest recovered remarkably, and the experiment became the model for Joint Forest Management, adopted as national policy through a Government of India circular in 1990. Option B, Odisha, has a strong tradition of self-initiated community forest protection and thousands of village committees, but Arabari is not in Odisha. Option C, Gujarat, and option D, Maharashtra, both run large Joint Forest Management programmes without being the origin of the idea. Under Joint Forest Management the village committee shares the usufruct, that is grasses, fuelwood, non-timber produce and a share of the final harvest, which is the detail most often asked.

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.