Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Environment)|October 31, 2020

If one wants to see multi-storeyed forests with tall trees and rare plants, where hardly any light reaches the ground, Cotigao Sanctuary is the place to go to.
•It touches the border of Karnataka state and in the lean season, several gaurs are known to come into Cotigao from its neighbourhood.
•The vegetation is mostly moist-deciduous type, interspersed with semi-evergreen and evergreen patches.
•The Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary was established in 1969 to protect a remote and vulnerable area of forest lining the Goa- Karnataka border.
•Encompassing 86-sq-kms of mixed deciduous woodland, the reserve is certain to inspire tree lovers, but less likely to yield many wildlife sightings: its tigers and leopards were hunted out long ago, while the Gazelles, Sloth Bears, Porcupines, Panthers and Hyenas that allegedly lurk in the woods rarely appear.
Source: The Hindu

A new species of dung beetle has been discovered in Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh.
•The species, Enoplotrupes tawangensis, is shining dark blue in colour and, measuring up to 27 mm, is relatively bigger than most of the dung beetles.
•Dung beetles belong to the super family scarabaeoidea, having clubbed antennae and pro-tibiae (pro-legs) modified for burrowing dung inside the soil.
•These groups of insects are considered beneficial to the environment as they help in nutrient cycling of the soil. Often referred to as little recyclers, these scavenger beetles require mammalian dung to survive.
•“Insects comprise almost 65% of all animal species on the planet. From India, approximately 65,000 species of insects are known, of them, more than 22,000 species are beetles.
•Dung beetles are the one of the fascinating group of insects because of their ability to bury dung deep in the soil and are indicators of the ecological health of an ecosystem”.
•Other than the relatively large size and distinct blue colour, another important distinguishing characteristic of this species is the strong sexual dimorphism, with the fronto-clypeal horn shorter in females than males.
Source: The Hindu

Chakrashila Wildlife Sanctuary is famous for being the second protected habitat of the Golden Langur.
•Charkashila was previously a reserve forest, but in the year 1994, it was declared as a wildlife sanctuary.
•It covers a total area of 45.50 sq km and its jurisdiction falls under two districts – namely of Dhubri and Kokrajhar district of Assam.
•In the Chakrashila Wildlife Sanctuary, tourists can see as many as 273 species of birds apart from 14 different species of reptiles, 60 kinds of fish and 11 species of amphibians.
•There are two lakes in the wildlife sanctuary which add to the beauty of the place. They are called Dheer Beel and Diplai Beel, and they are located on the two sides of the sanctuary.
•Chakrashila, India’s first wildlife sanctuary with golden langur as the primary species.
•Chakrashila has about 600 golden langurs whose population is scattered across western Assam and the foothills of Bhutan.
Source: Indian Express

In recent months, climate activists have stepped up efforts to convince travellers to boycott air travel, with Swedish schoolgirl and campaigner Greta Thunberg spearheading the trains-over-planes movement and making “flygskam”, or flight shame, a buzzword in the Scandinavian country.
•The industry has been under fire over its carbon emissions, which at 285 g of CO2 emitted per km travelled by a passenger far exceed all other modes of transport. Road transportation follows at 158 and rail travel is at 14, according to European Environment Agency figures.
•The International Civil Aviation Organization estimates that air transport is responsible for 2% of global CO2 emissions.
•But aircraft also emit particles such as nitrogen oxides, which can trap heat at high altitude, meaning the industry is responsible for 5% of warming, according to the Climate Action Network.
•The industry has committed to improving fuel efficiency by 1.5% per year from 2009 to 2020 and stabilising its CO2 emissions in preparation for a 50% reduction by 2050 compared to 2005.
Source: Indian Express

Golden is no longer the only colour the elusive Asiatic golden cat can be associated with.
•Its coat comes in five other shades in Arunachal Pradesh, scientists have discovered.
•The Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) is listed as near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species.
•It is found across eastern Nepal through north-eastern India to Indonesia.
•Indian scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), an international conservation charity, and University College London (UCL) have discovered six colour morphs of the golden cat in Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh.
•Scientists have found that its coat comes in six types: cinnamon, golden, gray, melanistic, ocelot and tightly rosetted.
Source: The Hindu

The National Green Tribunal has issued an order restraining Andhra Pradesh from proceeding further with the Godavari-Krishna-Penna river-linking project till the requisite environmental clearances and other permissions are taken under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
•The river valley projects require environmental clearance and also consent under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.
•The project could not be allowed till the requisite environmental requirements were met.
Source: The Hindu

Global sportswear giant Adidas aims at eliminating the use of virgin plastics in its products by 2024 — with a little help from a Maharashtra-based firm — the only one of its kind in the country to produce yarn out of discarded PET bottles.
•At its first factory set up in Nashik five years ago, Polygenta Technology Limited deploys a unique technology to break down used PET (short for Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles and convert them into polyester filament yarn.
•The firm, with a capacity to convert 30 tonnes of PET bottles into yarn a day, plans to scale up capacity to around 100 tonnes a day in the next two years to meet demand from the likes of Adidas — one of its first clients.

NOTE: According to the United Nations, around 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year — roughly the weight of the entire human population. Of this, eight million tonnes of plastic waste ends up in the oceans; PET bottles are the main contributors to plastic waste globally and in India.
Source: The Hindu

Over 30% of India’s protected area has been covered under the final ecologically sensitive zone (ESZ) notification, the Environment Ministry informed the Lok Sabha.
•As on June 25, 2019, final ESZ notifications covering 316 protected areas (PAs) and draft ESZ notification covering 199 protected areas have been published by the ministry.
•According to the ministry, out of the 651 Protected Areas (PAs) in India, 316 have been covered under the final ESZ notification which provides for prohibition of mining, stone quarrying and crushing units located within one k.m. of such protected areas.
•In the absence of the notification, an area of 10 k.m. around the PAs is considered ‘default ESZ’ according to the directions of the Supreme Court.
•Out of the 316 areas covered in ESZ final notification, 100 PAs are in Andaman and Nicobar Islands followed by 29 in Maharashtra and 23 protected areas in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
•The ESZ notifications are issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and Environment (Protection) Rules 1986.
Source: The Hindu

Zero tillage is the process where the crop seed will be sown through drillers without prior land preparation and disturbing the soil where previous crop stubbles are present.
•Zero tillage not only reduce the cost of cultivation it also reduces the soil erosion, crop duration and irrigation requirement and weed effect which is better than tillage.
•Zero Tillage (ZT) also called No Tillage or Nil Tillage.
Advantages of Zero Tillage: Reduction in the crop duration and thereby early cropping can be obtained to get higher yields.
•Reduction in the cost of inputs for land preparation and therefore a saving of around 80%.
•Residual moisture can be effectively utilized and number of irrigations can be reduced.
•Dry matter and organic matter get added to the soil.
•Environmentally safe – Greenhouse effect will get reduced due to carbon sequestration.
•No tillage reduces the compaction of the soil and reduces the water loss by runoff and prevents soil erosion.
•As the soil is intact and no disturbance is done, No Till lands have more useful flora and fauna.
Source: The Hindu

The ozone layer is a natural layer of gas in the upper atmosphere that protects humans and other living things from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.
•Although ozone is present in small concentrations throughout the atmosphere, most (around 90%) exists in the stratosphere, a layer 10 to 50 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.
•The ozone layer filters out most of the sun’s harmful UV radiation and is therefore crucial to life on Earth.
Ozone depletion: Scientists discovered in the 1970s that the ozone layer was being depleted.
•Atmospheric concentrations of ozone vary naturally depending on temperature, weather, latitude and altitude, while substances ejected by natural events such as volcanic eruptions can also affect ozone levels.
•However, these natural phenomena could not explain the levels of depletion observed and scientific evidence revealed that certain man-made chemicals were the cause.
•These ozone-depleting substances were mostly introduced in the 1970s in a wide range of industrial and consumer applications, mainly refrigerators, air conditioners and fire extinguishers.
•Vienna Convention (1985), Montreal Protocol (1987) and Kigali Agreement (2016) all three deal with the protection of ozone layer.
Source: NCERT