Daily Quiz #3 UPSC Prelims Marathon – August 3, 2019

Explanation: The Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre (VCBC) is a joint project of the Haryana Forest Department and the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). It is a collaborative initiative to save the three species of vultures, the White-backed, Long-billed and Slender-billed, from looming extinction. Subsequent to the release of the South Asia Vulture Recovery Plan in February 2004, the Vulture Care Centre was adapted and upgraded to being the first JCBC, in line with a key recommendation of the Recovery Plan to set up a conservation breeding programme for the three critically endangered Gyps species of vultures.
Diclofenac implicated as the main cause of vulture decline
The centre played an important role in confirming that diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, given to cattle to treat pain and inflammation, was the main cause of vulture mortality and population crash in vultures.
The following are the important steps taken by Government for protection of Vultures in the country:
•Protection status of White backed, Long Billed and Slender Billed Vultures has been upgraded from Schedule IV to Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
•Bombay Natural History Society in collaboration with the Haryana State Forest Department has taken up a project on conservation breeding of vultures. A ‘Vulture Captive Care facility’ has been established at Panchkula.
•Government of India has formulated a National Action Plan (2006) on Vulture Conservation. The Action Plan provides for strategies, actions for containing the decline of vulture population through ex-situ, in-situ vulture conservation.
•Captive breeding centres at Zoos at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Junagarh and Hyderabad have also been set up through Central Zoo Authority.
•Ramadevarabetta vulture sanctuary is the only vulture sanctuary in India, located in Karnataka.

Explanation: Ecotone, a transitional area of vegetation between two different plant communities, such as forest and grassland. It has some of the characteristics of each bordering biological communityand often contains species not found in the overlapping communities. An ecotone may exist along a broad belt or in a small pocket, such as a forest clearing, where two local communities blend together. The influence of the two bordering communities on each other is known as the edge effect. An ecotonal area often has a higher density of organisms of one species and a greater number of species than are found in either flanking community. Some organisms need a transitional area for activities such as courtship, nesting, or foraging for food.

Ecotype: A locally adapted population of a widespread species. Such populations show minor changes of morphology and/or physiology, which are related to habitat and are genetically induced. Nevertheless they can still reproduce with other ecotypes of the same species. Heavy-metal-tolerant ecotypes of common grasses such as Agrostis tenuis are an example.

Ecological Niche: All of the interactions of a species with the other members of its community, including competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism. A variety of abiotic factors, such as soil type and climate, also define a species’ niche.

Ecocline (ecological gradient): A gradation from one ecosystem to another when there is no sharp boundary between the two. It is the joint expression of associated community and complex environmental gradients.

Explanation: Sundarbans National Park is in all four lists- National Park, tiger reserve, UNESCO’s Natural Site and UNESCO’s MAB site.
Project Tiger was launched by the Government of India in the year 1973 to save the endangered species of tiger in the country. Starting from nine (9) reserves in 1973-74 the number is grown up to fifty (50).
7 UNESCO Natural World Heritage Sites in India:
1.Great Himalayan National Park.
2.Kaziranga National Park.
3.Keoladeo National Park.
4.Manas Wildlife Sanctuary.
5.Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Park.
6.Sundarbans National Park.
7.Western Ghats.

Biosphere Reserves under MAB program of UNESCO:
1.Nilgiri, 2000
2.Gulf of Mannar, 2001
3.Sunderban, 2001
4.Nanda Devi, 2004
5.Nokrek, 2009
6.Pachmarhi, 2009
7.Similipal, 2009
8.Achanakmar-Amarkantak, 2012
9.Great Nicobar, 2013
10.Agasthyamala, 2016
11.Khangchendzonga, 2018

Explanation:
•Researchers discover Dracaena cambodiana in Assam’s West Karbi Anglong dist. Assam has added to India’s botanical wealth a plant that yields dragon’s blood — a bright red resin used since ancient times as medicine, body oil, varnish, incense and dye.
•This is for the first time that a dragon tree species has been reported from India.
•In India, the Dracaena genus belonging to the family Asparagaceae is represented by nine species and two varieties in the Himalayan region, the northeast and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. But Dracaena cambodiana is the only true dragon tree species.
•Dracaena cambodiana is an important medicinal plant as well as an ornamental tree. it is a major source of dragon’s blood, a precious traditional medicine in China. Several antifungal and antibacterial compounds, antioxidants, flavonoids, etc., have been extracted from various parts of the plant.

Explanation: The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was adopted on 22 March 1989 by the Conference of Plenipotentiaries in Basel, Switzerland, in response to a public outcry following the discovery, in the 1980s, in Africa and other parts of the developing world of deposits of toxic wastes imported from abroad.
Awakening environmental awareness and corresponding tightening of environmental regulations in the industrialized world in the 1970s and 1980s had led to increasing public resistance to the disposal of hazardous wastes – in accordance with what became known as the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome – and to an escalation of disposal costs. This in turn led some operators to seek cheap disposal options for hazardous wastes in Eastern Europe and the developing world, where environmental awareness was much less developed and regulations and enforcement mechanisms were lacking. It was against this background that the Basel Convention was negotiated in the late 1980s, and its thrust at the time of its adoption was to combat the “toxic trade”, as it was termed. The Convention entered into force in 1992.