Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Environment)| October 24th 2020

The Government of India has launched the ‘Project Tiger’ in 1973.
•From 9 tiger reserves since its formative years, the Project Tiger coverage has increased to 50 at present, spread out in 18 of our tiger range states.
•The tiger reserves are constituted on a core/buffer strategy. The core areas have the legal status of a national park or a sanctuary.
•The buffer or peripheral areas are a mix of forest and non-forest land, managed as a multiple use area.
•The Project Tiger aims to foster an exclusive tiger agenda in the core areas of tiger reserves, with an inclusive people oriented agenda in the buffer.
Source: Envis

In any arrangement or community, the “keystone” is considered one of the most vital parts. In a marine ecosystem, or any type of ecosystem, a keystone species is an organism that helps hold the system together.
There are three types of keystone species cited by many scientists: predators, ecosystem engineers, and mutualists.
•Predators help control the populations of prey species, which in turn affects the quantity of plants and animals further along the food web.
•An ecosystem engineer is an organism that creates, changes, or destroys a habitat.
•When two or more species in an ecosystem interact for each other’s benefit, they are called mutualists.
Source: NCERT

Lawalong Wildlife Sanctuary was set up in 1978 to the southwest of Hazaribagh in the Chhotanagpur plateau area.
•It covers an area of about 211 sq. kms. The terrain is undulating and dissected by rivers and streams.
•Located in the south-west part of Chatra district, Lawalong sanctuary has a rich wildlife, including tiger and bison.
•Different spices of birds and serpents are also found here.
•A variety of wildlife including Tiger, Panther, Hyena, Spotted Deer, Wild Boar, Nilgai are available in this sanctuary.
Source: The Hindu

All three valleys are located in Arunachal Pradesh.
•Rivers constitute an important part of the topography of the state. Arunachal Pradesh is divided into five major river valleys: 1. The Siang Valley 2. The Kameng Valley 3. The Subansiri Valley 4. The Lohit Valley 5. The Tirap Valley.
•These valleys are named after the important rivers of the state.
•The major rivers and their tributaries traversing the state are Siang, Kameng, Subansiri, Subansiri, Lohit, Tirap etc.
•All these and other countless rivers and rivulets are fed by snow from the Himalayas. Therefore, mostly these small rivulets are perennial in nature.
Source: Shodhganga

The World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) advances environmental law around the globe by providing specialized knowledge and assistance to strengthen the legal foundations of the conservation of nature and sustainable development through the conceptual advancement of environmental principles, norms, and laws, and by building the capacity of communities to benefit from the environmental rule of law.
WCEL functions as an integral part of the IUCN Environmental Law Programme (ELP) that includes close collaboration with the Environmental Law Centre (ELC).
Source: UNFCCC

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are a group of chemicals possessing the following characteristics:
•They are highly toxic to humans and wildlife (harmfulness);
•They can last for many years in the environment before degrading into less dangerous forms (persistence);
•They bio-accumulate in the food chain (bio-accumulation);
•They are transported over large distances through air and water and can be found worldwide (long-range transport).
Source: Rotterdam Convention

Nitrogen is a critical limiting element for plant growth and production.
•It is a major component of chlorophyll, the most important pigment needed for photosynthesis, as well as amino acids, the key building blocks of proteins.
•It is also found in other important bio-molecules, such as ATP and nucleic acids.
•Even though it is one of the most abundant elements (predominately in the form of nitrogen gas (N2) in the Earth’s atmosphere), plants can only utilize reduced forms of this element.
Plants acquire these forms of “combined” nitrogen by:
•the addition of ammonia and/or nitrate fertilizer (from the Haber-Bosch process) or manure to soil,
•the release of these compounds during organic matter decomposition,
•the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen into the compounds by natural processes, such as lightning, and
•biological nitrogen fixation.
Source: NCERT

Himalayan tailless bush blue, Arhopala ganesa ganesa, is a butterfly that is usually present in the elevation between 1200 meters and 2400 meters in the states of Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand.
•It later recorded an altitude 3577 meters in Askot Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttarakhand.
•Researchers believe that these butterflies have migrated in search of a suitable climate where the climates in several Himalayan mountain ranges have already noticed significant changes.
Source: The Hindu

Biogeochemical cycles can be classed as gaseous, in which the reservoir is the air or the oceans (via evaporation), and sedimentary, in which the reservoir is the Earth’s crust.
Gaseous cycles include those of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and water; sedimentary cycles include those of iron, calcium, phosphorus, sulphur and other more earthbound elements.
Source: NCERT

Madhya Pradesh is also known as the ‘Tiger State’ as it harbors nearly 20% of India’s Wild Tiger Population and nearly 10% of the world’s tiger population as per the current estimates. The six Tiger Reserves in MP are:
•Kanha Tiger Reserve
•Pench Tiger Reserve
•Panna Tiger Reserve
•Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve
•Satpuda Tiger Reserve
•Sanjay Tiger Reserve
Source: Envis