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Subject: Biodiversity

1. Ecology & Ecosystems
2. Indian Biodiversity

  • Species in news: Neelakurinji

    neelakurinji

    As visitors keep pouring in to witness the blooming of neelakurinji on a vast area on the Kallippara hills at Santhanpara in Idukki, Kerala, an expert team has identified six varieties of the plant across the region.

    Neelakurinji

    • Kurinji or Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthianus) is a shrub that is found in the shola forests of the Western Ghats in South India.
    • Nilgiri Hills, which literally means the blue mountains, got their name from the purplish blue flowers of Neelakurinji that blossoms only once in 12 years.
    • It is the most rigorously demonstrated, with documented bloomings in 1838, 1850, 1862, 1874, 1886, 1898, 1910, 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006 and 2018
    • Some Kurinji flowers bloom once every seven years, and then die. Their seeds subsequently sprout and continue the cycle of life and death.
    • The Paliyan tribal people living in Tamil Nadu used it as a reference to calculate their age.

    Threats to Neelakurinji

    • About 1,000 ha of forestland, grantis and eucalyptus plantations and grasslands have been destroyed in the fire.
    • These large-scale wildfires on the grasslands where Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthiiana) blossomed widely last year after a period of 12 years could have wiped out all the seeds of the endemic flowers.
    • There are allegations that the areas coming under the proposed Kurinji sanctuary were set on fire with a motive to destroy the germination of Neelakurinji seeds.

     

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  • Stressed ecology of Bay of Bengal

    Bay of BengalContext

    • At the fourth BIMSTEC summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the opening of the Centre for Bay of Bengal Studies (CBS) at Nalanda University. The launch of the CBS has once again demonstrated India’s commitment to advancing constructive agendas by forging connections and setting up platforms for all those with an interest in the of Bay of Benagl.

    Bay of BengalWhy Bay of Bengal is so important?

    • Commerce hub: The Bay has long been a major commerce hub for the Indian Ocean. It created a conduit between the East and the West in terms for trade and culture.
    • Emerging arena of maritime warfare: An Indo-Pacific orientation and the realignment of global economic and military power towards Asia have had a considerable impact on the Bay region.
    • Communication and Energy: The key sea lanes of communication in this area are lifelines for global economic security and are crucial to the energy security that powers the economies of many countries in the region.Further, non-traditional dangers including terrorism and climate change have become more prevalent.
    • Under water resources: The Bay also provides an opportunity for greater regional cooperation in the environmentally friendly exploration of marine and energy resources. The Bay has a biodiverse marine environment.
    • Fresh water resources: It receives the water from some of the world’s largest rivers. It is a partially enclosed sea that has given rise to several geological characteristics.
    • Ecology: It is home to many rare and endangered marine species and mangroves, which are essential to the survival of the ecology and the fishing sector.

    Bay of BengalWhy ecology in the region is under threat?

    The region’s maritime environment has changed as are result of major powers expanding their economic and geopolitical influence.

    • Competition: Political and cultural engagement, together with economic competition, have taken on new dimensions. More crucially, the Bay’s ecosystem is going through an unprecedented crisis brought on by widespread environmental exploitation and geopolitical unrest.
    • Resource exploitation: Species extinction is a result of careless exploitation of the maritime environment, which has severe consequences on biodiversity. Problems such as population growth, altered land use, excessive resource exploitation, salinity, sea level rise, and climate change are exerting significant strain on the Bay’s environment.
    • Water pollution: Operational discharge from small and medium feeder ships, shipping collisions, unintentional oil spills, industrial waste, pollution, and the accumulation of non- biodegradable plastic litter are all contributing to the deterioration of the Bay.
    • Declining ecology: A dead-zone has formed, and the mangrove trees that protect the shore from the fury of nature are under more threat than ever.

    What could be the Solutions?

    For a better knowledge of challenges, and strategies to overcome them for the sustainable development of the region, more focused and inter-disciplinary study is required on these issues.

    • Centre for Bay of Bengal studies: By founding the CBS, Nalanda University has already started its journey and given the nation a unique interdisciplinary research centre devoted to Bay focused teaching, research, and capacity building. Additionally, scholars from many countries and academic streams are already participating in CBS’s first certificate programme on the Bay.
    • Inter-governmental cooperation: It is essential that nautical neighbours develop a partnership and cooperate because of the maritime domain’s interrelated and interdependent nature, transnational character, and cross-jurisdictional engagement of various governments and diverse organisations and enterprises.
    • Maritime connectivity: A few concerns that need immediate attention include expanding cooperation in maritime safety and security, enhancing cooperation on maritime connectivity and the ease of maritime transit, and boosting investment possibilities in the maritime connectivity sector.
    • Illegal activities: The latter subject involves addressing non-traditional threats and fostering group efforts to reduce illicit, unreported, and unregulated fishing.
    • Data sharing: Standardising and harmonising data reporting.
    • Balanced approach: Furthermore regional marine entities should strive to balance opportunities and goals on a national, regional, and international scale.
    • Investment in R&D: Littoral governments need to support and promote skill-building, research, and training.

    Conclusion

    • Countries in the Bay of Bengal need to mobilise investments, manage maritime affairs more effectively. Alternative lifestyle should be explored. The cooperation of all member states, for information gathering, sharing and result oriented actions is crucial in protecting the ecology of Bay of Bengal.

    Mains Question

    Q.Countries in the Indian subcontinent are developing rapidly, putting serious stress on the environment of the Bay of Bengal.Mention the challenges and suggest solutions.

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  • Cheetah reintroduction

    Cheetah

    Context

    • This is the world’s first intercontinental translocation of a carnivore. It is even more unique because this is the first time cheetahs has reintroduced in an unfenced protected area (PA).
    • The Government is preparing to translocate the first batch from South Africa and Namibia to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

    About Asiatic Cheetah

    • Feature: Cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal was declared extinct in India in 1952.
    • Status: The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List, and is believed to survive only in Iran.
    • Reintroduction: It was expected to be re-introduced into the country after the Supreme Court lifted curbs for its re-introduction.
    • Extinction: From 400 in the 1990s, their numbers are estimated to have reached to 50-70 today, because of poaching, hunting of their main prey (gazelles) and encroachment on their habitat.

    Cheetah

    Cheetah

    What caused the extinction of cheetahs in India?

    • Reduced fecundity and high infant mortality in the wild
    • Inability to breed in captivity
    • Sport hunting
    • Bounty killings

    Cheetah

    Why reintroduce Cheetahs?

    • Climate Change Mitigation: It will enhance India’s capacity to sequester carbon through ecosystem restoration activities in cheetah conservation areas and thereby contribute towards the global climate change mitigation goals.
    • Reintroductions of large carnivores have increasingly been recognized as a strategy to conserve threatened species and restore ecosystem functions.
    • The cheetah is the only large carnivore that has been extirpated, mainly by over-hunting in India in historical times.
    • India now has the economic ability to consider restoring its lost natural heritage for ethical as well as ecological reasons.

    Why was Kuno National Park chosen for Cheetah Reintroduction?

    • Both Cheetah and Asiatic Lions share the same habitats semi-arid grasslands and forests that stretch across Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh.
    • The rainfall, temperature, and altitude in the Sheopur district, where Kuno is situated, are equivalent to those of South Africa and Namibia.
    • In addition, Kuno contains a diverse population of prey species, including peafowl, wild pigs, gazelle, langurs, chital, sambhar, and nilgai.

    What are the Other Recent Initiatives for Wildlife Conservation in India?

    Legal Framework:

    • Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972
    • Environment Protection Act, 1986
    • The Biological Diversity Act, 2002

    India’s Collaboration with Global Wildlife Conservation Efforts:

    • Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
    • Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS)
    • Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
    • Global Tiger Forum (GTF)

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  • Development vs sustainability

    Context

    • According to NITI Aayog, “600 million people in India face high to extreme water stress with nearly 70% of water being contaminated; India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index”.
    • The latest global environmental ranking by Yale and Columbia Universities puts India at the bottom among 180 countries.

    What is development?

    • Economic development means different things to different people. On a broad scale, anything a community does to foster and create a healthy economy can fall under the auspice of economic development.

    What is sustainability?

    • The integration of environmental health, social equity and economic vitality in order to create thriving, healthy, diverse and resilient communities for this generation and generations to come. The practice of sustainability recognizes how these issues are interconnected and requires a systems approach and an acknowledgement of complexity.
    • Sustainability is the balance between the environment, equity, and economy.

    What sustainability do for us?

    • Sustainable practices support ecological, human, and economic health and vitality.
    • Sustainability presumes that resources are finite, and should be used conservatively and wisely with a view to long-term priorities and consequences of the ways in which resources are used.
    • In simplest terms, sustainability is about our children and our grandchildren, and the world we will leave them.

    Definition of carrying capacity of earth

    • Carrying capacity: Carrying capacity is the maximum number of a species an environment can support indefinitely. Every species has a carrying capacity, even humans. The species population size is limited by environmental factors like adequate food, shelter, water, and mates. If these needs are not met, the population will decrease until the resource rebounds.

    Mother earth has reached its carrying capacity now

    • No species has altered the Earth’s natural landscape the way humans have.
    • Global climate change, mass extinction, and overexploitation of our global commons are all examples of the ways in which humans have altered the natural landscape.
    • Our growing population, coupled with rising affluence and per capita impact, is driving our planet closer to its tipping point.
    • With population expected to reach 5 billion by 2050, many wonder if our natural resources can keep up with our growing demands.

    Enrich your mains answer with this

    8 Billion dreams, ambitions, aspirations and only one earth to support them all . Human population, now nearing 8 billion, cannot continue to grow indefinitely. There are limits to the life-sustaining resources earth can provide us. In other words, there is a carrying capacity for human life on our planet.

    Development vs environment issues

    • Unemployment: For India, the national context is shaped by high youth unemployment, millions more entering the workforce each year, and a country hungry for substantial investments in hard infrastructure to industrialise and urbanise.
    • Growth with low emission footprint: India’s economic growth in the last three decades, led by growth in the services sector, has come at a significantly lower emissions footprint.
    • Infrastructure: But in the coming decades, India will have to move to an investment-led and manufacturing-intensive growth model to create job opportunities and create entirely new cities and infrastructure to accommodate and connect an increasingly urban population.

    Why a Carbon Fee and Dividend is Imperative

    It is clear that we will soon pass the limit on carbon emissions, because it requires decades to replace fossil fuel energy infrastructure with carbon-neutral and carbon negative energies.

    What could India do to pursue an industrialization pathway that is climate-compatible?

    • A coherent national transition strategy is important in a global context where industrialised countries are discussing the imposition of carbon border taxes while failing to provide developing countries the necessary carbon space to grow or the finance and technological assistance necessary to decarbonise.
    • What India needs is an overarching green industrialisation strategy that combines laws, policy instruments, and new or reformed implementing institutions to steer its decentralised economic activities to become climate-friendly and resilient.
    Case study for value addition

    • Bhutan: Bhutan remains, for example, the first and only carbon-negative country in the world, and they have also recently prevented the COVID-19 pandemic from overwhelming its population, with only one Bhutanese citizen  passing away from the virus to date.

     

     

    Way forward

    • India should set its pace based on its ability to capitalise on the opportunities to create wealth through green industrialisation.

    Mains question

    Do you think mother earth has reached its carrying capacity? Discuss this in context of development vs environment debate.

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  • Tiger conservation

    Context

    India is now reporting increased tiger numbers, and a recent International Union for Conservation of Nature assessment suggests that tiger numbers have increased by 40% since 2005. This is cause for celebration. But is the rise in tiger numbers enough to prevent their extinction?

    Relations between distribution and genetic variation

    • Decades of research in ecology and evolution suggest that numbers are critical to avoid extinction. 
    • Populations that are smaller than 100 breeding individuals have a high probability of extinction.
    • At the same time, for populations to persist, they should be part of larger landscapes with other such populations that are connected.
    • This is because small populations are subject to chance/random events.
    • These chance events may cause them to lose advantageous genetic variants, while other, detrimental genetic variants might increase in frequency.
    • This process is called genetic drift.
    • Individuals in small populations are more likely to be related, leading to inbreeding.
    • This exposes the many slightly disadvantageous genetic variants that are present in all genomes.
    • When expressed together, these detrimental genetic variants cause inbreeding depression, and reduced survival and reproduction of inbred individuals.
    • A closer look at the distribution of tigers across their range shows that most tiger ‘populations’ are smaller than 100.
    • This raises a question why are we not seeing extinctions happening more often? Is this because tiger populations are connected to each other?

    Research findings about movement of tigers

    • One way to answer the question about not so frequent extinction is to use movement data sourced from radio-collared tigers, often difficult to come by for a rare and endangered species.
    • Alternatively, tigers can be genetically sampled using their excreta/scat, hair and other biological samples from different tiger reserves and analysed in a laboratory.
    • Genetic variants in tiger DNA can be identified and analysed and compared across tiger reserves.
    • Genetic variation in landscape with connectivity: Sets of tiger reserves that show shared genetic variation are well connected — the inference is that the intervening landscapes facilitate connectivity or movement.
    • On the flip side, sets of tiger reserves that share less genetic variation must have barriers or landscapes that impede movement and connectivity.
    • Most land-use types were not too bad for tiger connectivity, including agricultural fields.
    • However, the presence of built-up areas and high traffic roads greatly impeded tiger movement.
    • Results showed that extinction could be avoided if corridors were safeguarded.
    • In summary, as long as we manage landscapes outside tiger reserves to allow tiger movement, and protect prey and tigers inside tiger reserves, tigers are sure to survive in landscapes such as central India.

    Genetic changes in isolated tiger population

    • Black tigers were found only in the Similipal tiger reserve in Odisha.
    • Genome sequences of a litter of zoo tigers that included pseudo-melanistic cubs revealed that a single spelling mistake (or mutation) in a specific gene causes these tigers to look this way.
    • Pseudo-melanistic or black tigers found in Odisha has demonstrated the genetic effects of isolation.
    • Results of the research pointed to genetic drift, or random events that have lead to this genetic variant that causes pseudomelanistic coat colour becoming common only in Similipal.
    • On the other side of India, in Rajasthan, genome sequences from wild tigers reveal that individuals in the Ranthambore tiger reserve show inbreeding.
    • In short, we are seeing the genetic effects of isolation and small population size in wild tigers at some locations.

    Way forward

    • Focus on connectivity: While we celebrate the recovery of tiger populations only by looking at numbers, we must not lose sight of other factors that are critical to their continued survival, such as connectivity.
    • Special attention is needed for populations that are becoming isolated and facing the genetic consequences of such isolation.
    • The future of such populations may depend on genetic rescue or even the introduction of novel genetic variants.

    Conclusion

    We are fortunate that novel genome sequencing technology provides an opportunity to understand tigers much better in the context of their conservation. The future of tigers will require a ‘dialogue’ between such data and management strategies in order to ensure their survival. India is lucky to have so many wild tigers and we must work together to save them.

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    Back2Basics: Pseudo-melanism

    • Tigers have a distinctive dark stripe pattern on a light background of white or golden.
    • A rare pattern variant, distinguished by stripes that are broadened and fused together, is also observed in both wild and captive populations.
    • This is known as pseudo-melanism, which is different from true melanism, a condition characterised by unusually high deposition of melanin, a dark pigment.
    • While truly melanistic tigers are yet to be recorded, pseudo-melanistic ones have been camera-trapped repeatedly, and only, in Simlipal, a 2,750-km tiger reserve in Odisha, since 2007

  • Species in news: Kannimara Teak

    The legendary Kannimara teak of the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve is still growing in height and girth.

    What is the news?

    • Over the last five years, the centuries-old teak has grown by 1.85 metres in height and 9 cm in girth.
    • This might be one of the largest and oldest teak tree in the world.

    Kannimara teak

    • Worshipped by the tribes of Parambikulam, the Kannimara teak remains a flagship of the tiger reserve offering a spectacular view to visitors.
    • For the tribespeople of Parambikulam, it is still a ‘virgin tree’.
    • That was why they named it Kannimara (meaning virgin tree).
    • The tribal legend has it that the tree had bled when people tried to cut it.
    • So they protected it and started worshipping the tree by offering annual pujas.
    • The Kannimara tree had won the Union government’s Mahavriksha Puraskar in its first year of introduction in 1994.

     

     

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  • Four new corals recorded from Indian waters

    Scientists have recorded four species of corals for the first time from Indian waters. These new species of azooxanthellate corals were found from the waters off the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

    What are Azooxanthellate Corals?

    • The azooxanthellate corals are a group of corals that do not contain zooxanthellae and derive nourishment not from the sun but from capturing different forms of planktons.
    • They are deep-sea representatives with the majority of species being reported from depths between 200 metres and 1,000 metres.
    • They are also reported from shallow waters unlike zooxanthellate corals that are restricted to shallow waters.

    Which are the news species found?

    • Truncatoflabellum crassum, T. incrustatum, T. aculeatum, and T. irregulare under the family Flabellidae were previously found in Japan, the Philippines and Australian waters.
    • Only T. crassum was reported with the range of Indo-West Pacific distribution.

    Significance of the discovery

    • Most studies of hard corals in India have been concentrated on reef-building corals while much is not known about non-reef-building corals.
    • These new species enhance our knowledge about non-reef-building solitary corals.

    Back2Basics: Coral Reefs

    • Corals are marine invertebrates or animals not possessing a spine.
    • Each coral is called a polyp and thousands of such polyps live together to form a colony, which grows when polyps multiply to make copies of themselves.
    • Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system stretching across 2,300 km.
    • It hosts 400 different types of coral, gives shelter to 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc.
    • Corals are of two types — hard coral and soft coral:
    1. Hard corals, also called hermatypic or ‘reef building’ corals extract calcium carbonate (also found in limestone) from the seawater to build hard, white coral exoskeletons.
    2. Soft coral polyps, however, borrow their appearance from plants, attach themselves to such skeletons and older skeletons built by their ancestors. Soft corals also add their own skeletons to the hard structure over the years and these growing multiplying structures gradually form coral reefs. They are the largest living structures on the planet.

    How do they feed themselves?

    • Corals share a symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae.
    • The algae provides the coral with food and nutrients, which they make through photosynthesis, using the sun’s light.
    • In turn, the corals give the algae a home and key nutrients.
    • The zooxanthellae also give corals their bright colour.

     

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  • Green Hydrogen: Fuel of the Future

    India aspires to emerge as the leader of green hydrogen by taking advantage of the current energy crisis across the globe.

    Why in news?

    • Oil India Limited (OIL) has commissioned India’s first 99.99% pure green hydrogen plant in eastern Assam’s Jorhat.
    • Powered by a 500 KW solar plant, the green hydrogen unit has an installed capacity to produce 10 kg of hydrogen per day and scale it up to 30 kg per day.

    What is Hydrogen?

    • Hydrogen is the lightest, simplest and most abundant member of the family of chemical elements in the universe.
    • It is colourless, odourless, tasteless, non-toxic and highly combustible gaseous substance.

    What is Green hydrogen?

    • Green hydrogen is the one produced with no harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
    • It is made by using clean electricity from surplus renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind power, to electrolyse water.
    • Electrolysers use an electrochemical reaction to split water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, emitting zero-carbon dioxide in the process.
    • Green hydrogen currently makes up a small percentage of the overall hydrogen, because production is expensive.

    Why is India pursuing green hydrogen?

    • Under the Paris Agreement of 2015, India is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 33-35% from the 2005 levels.
    • It is a legally binding international treaty on climate change with the goal of limiting global warming to below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels.
    • At the 2021 CoP in Glasgow, India reiterated its commitment to move from a fossil and import-dependent economy to a net-zero economy by 2070.
    • India’s average annual energy import bill is more than $100 billion .
    • The increased consumption of fossil fuel has made the country a high CO2 emitter which accounts for nearly 7% of the global CO2 burden.

    Various policy moves

    • In order to become energy independent by 2047, the government stressed the need to introduce green hydrogen as an alternative fuel that can make India the global hub and a major exporter of hydrogen.
    • The National Hydrogen Mission was launched on August 15, 2021, with a view to cutting down carbon emissions and increasing the use of renewable sources of energy.

    How much green hydrogen is India producing?

    • India has just begun to generate green hydrogen with the objective of raising non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030.
    • It was on April 20, 2022 that the public sector OIL, which is headquartered in eastern Assam’s Duliajan, set up India’s first 99.99% pure green hydrogen pilot plant.
    • Research and development efforts are ongoing for a reduction in the cost of production, storage and the transportation of hydrogen.

    What are the advantages of hydrogen as a fuel?

    • Hydrogen can be used to produce electricity using fuel cells.
    • Hydrogen, thus, can act as an energy storage device and contribute to grid stability.
    • The oxygen, produced as a by-product (8 kg of oxygen is produced per 1 kg of hydrogen), can also be monetised by using it for industrial and medical applications or for enriching the environment.

    Limitations to Hydrogen

    • Despite being the most abundant element in the Universe, hydrogen does not exist on its own so needs to be extracted from water via electrolysis or separated from carbon fossil fuels.
    • Hydrogen fuel cells need huge investment to be developed to the point where they become a genuinely viable energy source.
    • This will also require the political will to invest the time and money into development in order to improve and mature the technology.
    • Precious metals such as platinum and iridium are typically required as catalysts in fuel cells meaning unfeasibly high cost.
    • There are also barriers around regulatory issues concerning the framework that defines commercial deployment models.
    • Storage and transportation of hydrogen is more complex than that required for fossil fuels due to its high inflammability.

    Back2Basics:  Colours spectrum of Hydrogen

    (1) Green hydrogen

    (2) Blue hydrogen

    • It is produced mainly from natural gas, using a process called steam reforming, which brings together natural gas and heated water in the form of steam.
    • The output is hydrogen – but also carbon dioxide as a by-product.
    • That means carbon capture and storage (CCS) is essential to trap and store this carbon.
    • Blue hydrogen is sometimes described as ‘low-carbon hydrogen’ as the steam reforming process doesn’t actually avoid the creation of greenhouse gases.

    (3) Grey hydrogen

    • Currently, this is the most common form of hydrogen production.
    • Grey hydrogen is created from natural gas, or methane, using steam methane reformation but without capturing the greenhouse gases made in the process.

    (4) Black and brown hydrogen

    • Any hydrogen made from fossil fuels through the process of ‘gasification’ is sometimes called black or brown hydrogen interchangeably.
    • They are the most environmentally damaging.

    (5) Pink hydrogen

    • Pink hydrogen is generated through electrolysis powered by nuclear energy.
    • Nuclear-produced hydrogen can also be referred to as purple hydrogen or red hydrogen.
    • In addition, the very high temperatures from nuclear reactors could be used in other hydrogen productions by producing steam for more efficient electrolysis or fossil gas-based steam methane reforming.

     

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  • Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, 2021

    What is issue:

    A senior parliamentarian has expressed concern over the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which is in the final stages of consultations in the Joint Parliamentary Committee.

    Biological Diversity Act (BDA), 2002: 

    • The BDA, 2002 was enacted for the conservation of biological diversity and fair, equitable sharing of the monetary benefits from the commercial use of biological resources and traditional knowledge.
    • The main intent of this legislation is to protect India’s rich biodiversity and associated knowledge against their use by foreign individuals.
    • It seeks to check biopiracy, protect biological diversity and local growers through a three-tier structure of central and state boards and local committees.
    • The Act provides for setting up of a National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) and Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) in local bodies.
    • The NBA will enjoy the power of a civil court.

    What are the proposed Amendments?

    The amendment bill seeks to reduce the pressure on wild medicinal plants by encouraging the cultivation of medicinal plants and Decriminalizes certain offences.

    • Biological resources sharing: Exempts Ayush practitioners from intimating biodiversity boards for accessing biological resources or knowledge (Vaids and Hakims)
    • Research promotion: Facilitates fast-tracking of research, simplify the patent application process
    • Bring in foreign investment: Seeks to bring more foreign investments in biological resources, research, patent and commercial utilisation, without compromising the national interest

    Need for the Amendment

    • Simplifying process: Concerns were raised by Ayush medicine, seed, industry and research sectors urging the government to simplify, streamline the profession.
    • Easing compliance: They urged govt to reduce the compliance burden to provide for a conducive environment for collaborative research and investments.
    • Access and Benefit-sharing: It also sought to simplify the patent application process, widen the scope of access and benefit-sharing with local communities.
    • Exemptions: Ayush practitioners have been exempted from the ambit of the Act, a huge move because the Ayush industry benefits greatly from biological resources in India.
    • Certain offences: Violations of the law related to benefit-sharing with communities, which are currently treated as criminal offences and are non-bailable, have been proposed to be made civil offences.
    • Imbibing Nagoya Protocol: This bill provides to reconcile the domestic law with free prior informed consent requirements of the 2010 Nayogya Protocol on ABS.

    Criticisms of the bill

    • No consultation: The bill has been introduced without seeking public comments as required under the pre-legislative consultative policy.
    • No profit-sharing: There are ambiguous provisions in the proposed amendment to protect, conserve or increase the stake of local communities in the sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity.
    • Commercialization: Activists say that the amendments were done to “solely benefit” the AYUSH Ministry.
    • Loopholes to Biopiracy: The Bill would mean AYUSH manufacturing companies would no longer need to take approvals.
    • Ignoring Bio-utilization: The bill has excluded the term Bio-utilization which is an important element in the Act.  Leaving out bio utilization would leave out an array of activities like characterization, incentivisation and bioassay which are undertaken with commercial motive.
    • Exotic plants cultivation: The bill also exempts cultivated medicinal plants from the purview of the Act but it is practically impossible to detect which plants are cultivated and which are from the wild.
    • De-licensing: This provision could allow large companies to evade the requirement for prior approval or share the benefit with local communities.

  • Highlights of State of the World’s Birds Report

    The State of the World’s Birds, an annual review of environmental resources has revealed that the population of 48% of the 10,994 surviving species of birds is declining.

    State of the World’s Birds

    • The report is published by the Manchester Metropolitan University.
    • It gives an overview of the changes in the knowledge of avian biodiversity and the extent to which it is imperilled.
    • The study draws from BirdLife International’s latest assessment of all birds for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List.

    What are the key findings of the study?

    • The study found that 5,245 or about 48% of the existing bird species worldwide are known or suspected to be undergoing population declines.
    • While 4,295 or 39% of the species have stable trends, about 7% or 778 species have increasing population trends.
    • It shows 1,481 or 13.5% species are currently threatened with global extinction.

    Where the birds are threatened the most?

    • The more threatened bird species (86.4%) are found in tropical than in temperate latitudes (31.7%).
    • Such hotspots are concentrated in the tropical Andes, southeast Brazil, eastern Himalayas, eastern Madagascar, and Southeast Asian islands.

    What is the importance of birds to ecosystems and culture?

    • Birds contribute toward many ecosystem services that either directly or indirectly benefit humanity.
    • These include provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services.
    • The functional role of birds within ecosystems as pollinators, seed-dispersers, ecosystem engineers, scavengers and predators.
    • They not only facilitate accrual and maintenance of biodiversity but also support human endeavours such as sustainable agriculture via pest control besides aiding other animals to multiply.
    • For instance, coral reef fish productivity has been shown to increase as seabird colonies recovered following rat eradication in the Chagos archipelago.
    • Wild birds and products derived from them are also economically important as food (meat, eggs).

    What are the threats contributing to avian biodiversity loss?

    • The study lists eight factors, topped by land cover and land-use change.
    • The continued growth of human populations and of per capita rates of consumption lead directly to conversion and degradation of primary natural habitats.
    • Deforestation has been driven by afforestation with plantations (often of non-native species) plus land abandonment in parts of the global North, with net loss in the tropics.
    • The other factors are habitat fragmentation, degradation, hunting and trapping.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2020:

    Q.With reference to India’s Biodiversity, Ceylon frogmouth, Coppersmith barbet, Gray-chinned minivet and White-throated redstart are

    (a) Birds

    (b) Primates

    (c) Reptiles

    (d) Amphibians

     

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