Daily Quiz #4 UPSC Prelims Marathon – October 5, 2019

Explanation: ActNow is the United Nations’ global call to individual action on climate change. The campaign is a critical part of the UN’s coordinated effort to raise awareness, ambition, and action for climate change and accelerate implementation of the Paris Agreement. Primarily an online and social media campaign, ActNow will educate and encourage individual actions, mainly by adjusting consumption patterns. By changing our habits and routines and making choices that have less harmful effects on the environment, we have the power to confront the climate challenge.

Explanation: A keystone species—which can be any organism, from animals and plants to bacteria and fungi—is the glue that holds a habitat together. It may not be the largest or most plentiful species in an ecological community, but if a keystone is removed, it sets off a chain of events that turns the structure and biodiversity of its habitat into something very different. Although all an ecosystem’s many components are intricately linked, these are the living things that play a pivotal role in how their ecosystem functions. Keystone species maintain the local biodiversity of an ecosystem, influencing the abundance and type of other species in a habitat. They are nearly always a critical component of the local food web. One of the defining characteristics of a keystone species is that it fills a critical ecological role that no other species can. Without its keystone species, an entire ecosystem would radically change—or cease to exist altogether. It’s important to note that a species’ role can change from one ecosystem to the next, and a species that is considered a keystone in one environment may not be considered the same in another.

Explanation: Biosphere reserves are sites established by countries and recognized under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme to promote sustainable development based on local community efforts and sound science.The programme of Biosphere Reserve was initiated by UNESCO in 1971. The purpose of the formation of the biosphere reserve is to conserve in situ all forms of life, along with its support system, in its totality, so that it could serve as a referral system for monitoring and evaluating changes in natural ecosystems. The first biosphere reserve of the world was established in 1979, since then the network of biosphere reserves has increased to 631 in 119 countries across the world. Presently, there are 18 notified biosphere reserves in India.

Explanation: INFOTERRA, the global network of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), through its network of 174 participating countries has been providing substantive information on environment to its users all over the world. ENVIS at the Ministry of Environment and Forests (Government of India), New Delhi, has been designated INFOTERRA’s National Focal Point (NFP) for India and Regional Service Centre (RSC) for the South Asia sub-region. It provides referral as well as substantive information in the form of bibliographies, photocopies of the relevant reports/reprints etc.

Explanation: ENVIS (Environmental Information System) has started implementing the World Bank assisted Environment Management Capacity Building Technical Assistance Project (EMCBTAP) since January, 2002 which aims at structuring the ENVIS scheme by extending its reach through involvement of Institutions/Organizations in State Governments, academia sector, corporate sector, NGO sector, etc.
The project also aims at broadening the ambit of ENVIS to include varying subject areas, themes, local conditions, issues, information/data needs of the country pertaining to environment and planned to be achieved through enlargement of participatory Organizations/Institutions, called EMCB-Nodes in various sectors and through introduction of modern means of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This programme is a continuation of the Sustainable Development Networking Programme: India (SDNP-India) programme, funded jointly by the UNDP and IDRC, Canada.