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Subject: Conservation & Mitigation

1. Conservation Progs.
2. Worldwide initiatives
3. Mitigation Strategies
4. Conventions and Protocols

  • What are ‘Green Jobs’, mentioned by PM in his Environment Day speech?

    At an event to mark World Environment Day recently, PM mentioned India’s efforts to create ‘green jobs’.

    What are ‘Green Jobs’?

    • ‘Green jobs’ refer to a class of jobs that directly have a positive impact on the planet, and contribute to the overall environmental welfare.
    • Jobs involving renewable energy, conservation of resources, ensuring energy efficient means are categorised under the same.
    • In all, they are aimed at reducing the negative environmental impact of economic sectors and furthering the process of creating a low-carbon economy.
    • The idea behind a low-carbon economy or decarbonisation is fairly simple — it is about maintaining a sustainable economy.

    India and ‘green jobs’

    • The Skill Council for Green Jobs was launched by the Union government on October 1, 2015.
    • Aligned to the National Skill Development Missions, it was set up to be a not-for-profit, independent, industry-led initiative.

    Why need Green Jobs?

    • The UNEP’s 2019 Emissions Gap report dictates that it is essential for greenhouse gas emissions to reduce by 7.6% per annum between the years 2020 to 2030.
    • This is necessary to reach the target that was set during the Paris Agreement.
    • Failing to meet the same would consequently result in a failure to effectively combat global warming.
    • Consequently, a decarbonized economy plays a key role in ensuring a greener, safer, healthier and more sustainable planet to inhabit.

    Way forward

    • According to the ILO, India moving to a green economy by the next decade would alone create about 3 million jobs in the renewable energy sector.
    • The renewable energy sector created about 47,000 new jobs in 2017 accounting for a 12% increase in just the span of a year.
    • For India ‘green jobs’ can prove immensely useful to the country with sectors like renewable energy, waste management, green transport and urban farming.
    • An integrated, systematic approach is crucial to ensuring this.

     

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  • World’s first Fishing Cat Census done in Chilika

    The Chilika Lake, Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon, has 176 fishing cats, according to a census done by the Chilika Development Authority (CDA) in collaboration with the Fishing Cat Project (TFCP).

    About Fishing Cats

    • About twice the size of a typical house cat, the fishing cat is a feline with a powerful build and stocky legs.
    • It is an adept swimmer and enters water frequently to prey on fish as its name suggests.
    • It is known to even dive to catch fish.
    • It is nocturnal and apart from fish also preys on frogs, crustaceans, snakes, birds, and scavenges on carcasses of larger animals.
    • It is capable of breeding all year round but in India its peak breeding season is known to be between March and May.

    Conservation status

    • IUCN Red List: Endangered
    • CITES: Appendix II
    • Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule I

    Various threats

    • One of the major threats facing the fishing cat is the destruction of wetlands, which is its preferred habitat.
    • As a result of human settlement, drainage for agriculture, pollution, and wood-cutting most of the wetlands in India are under threat of destruction.
    • Another threat to the fishing cat is the depletion of its main prey-fish due to unsustainable fishing practices.
    • It is also occasionally poached for its skin.

    Back2Basics: Chilika Lake

    • Chilika Lake is a brackish water lagoon, spread over the Puri, Khurda and Ganjam districts of Odisha.
    • It is located at the mouth of the Daya River, flowing into the Bay of Bengal, covering an area of over 1,100 km2.
    • It is the largest coastal lagoon in India and the largest brackish water lagoon in the world after The New Caledonian barrier reef.
    • It has been listed Ramsar Site as well as a tentative UNESCO World Heritage site.

    Its formation

    • The process of the formation of the Chilika might have begun in the latter part of the Pleistocene epoch, around 20,000 years ago.
    • India’s peninsular river Mahanadi carried a heavy load of silt and dumped part of it at its delta.
    • As the sediment-laden river met the Bay of Bengal, sand bars were formed near its mouth.
    • These created a backflow of the seawater into the sluggish fresh water at the estuary, resulting in the huge brackish water lake.
    • Marine archaeological studies on the Odisha coast clearly show that the Chilika once acted as a safe harbor for cargo ships bound for Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.

     

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  • E-Waste Recycling in India

    Attero Recycling, one of India’s largest electronic waste management companies, is set to invest close to $1 billion in expanding their electronic waste recycling facilities in India.

    E-waste Management: A tricky task

    • E-waste management is a complicated process given the multitude of actors that are involved in the process.
    • The major stakeholders in the value chain include importers, producers/manufacturers, retailers (businesses/government/others), consumers (individual households, businesses, government and others), traders, scrap dealers, dissemblers/dismantlers and recyclers.
    • To critically assess each in the different stages of processing, it is important to understand the e-waste value chain.
    • The process involves four stages: generation, collection, segregation and treatment/disposal.

    India’s regulatory ecosystem

    • Indian electronics sector boomed in the last decade.
    • Increased production and penetration of imported electronics items led to an accelerated e-waste generation that necessitated regulatory control over the sector.
    • India has Electronic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2011 in place since . Its scope was expanded in 2016 and 2018 through amendments.

    Provisions of the 2011 Rules

    • To streamline e-waste management, the Government introduced Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) whereby producers were required to collect and recycle electronic items.
    • Since manufacturers were incurring the disposal cost, their designs would incorporate less toxic and easily recyclable materials, thereby reducing input material requirements.

    Inherent flaws in Implementation

    • Recycling: Less than five percent of the waste is treated through formal recycling facilities.
    • Informal sector: The rest is handled by the informal sector with very little enforcement of environmental and occupational safety norms.
    • Weak Regulations: A deeper analysis revealed that the EPR regulations in India were not quantified through collection or recycling targets as in other countries with better implementation framework and mechanisms.
    • Lack of incentivization: In the absence of targets, producers had little incentive to ensure the collection of their used products.

    Current scenario and issues in e-waste recycling

    • Crude and Scrappage: As of today, some 95% of e-waste is managed by the informal sector which operates under inferior working conditions and relies on crude techniques for dismantling and recycling.
    • Infrastructure lacunae: Another important issue is the lack of sufficient metal processing infrastructure which is why recyclers have to export materials to global smelters.
    • Price competencies: As aggregators are mostly informal, they demand up-front cash payments.
    • Bloomed informal network: The informal network is well-established and rests on social capital ties that PROs have yet to establish and are hence insulated from reaching the viable number of aggregators.
    • Policy failure: Policy changes have tried repeatedly to formalize the sector, but issues of implementation persist on the ground.

    Way forward

    • Effective design: Since India is highly deficient in precious mineral resources, there is a need for a well-designed, robust and regulated e-waste recovery regime that would generate jobs and wealth.
    • Consumer responsibility: The consumers must responsibly consume the product for its useful life and then weigh between the chances of repair or disposal with utmost consciousness towards the environment.
    • Recyclable products: On the supply side, e-waste can be reduced when producers design electronic products that are safer, and more durable, repairable and recyclable.
    • Reuse: Manufacturers must reuse the recyclable materials and not mine rare elements unnecessarily to meet new production.
    • Commercial recycling: Rather than hoping that informal recyclers become formal it would be more feasible for companies and the state to design programs ensure e-waste easily makes its way to proper recyclers.

     

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  • Keep ESZ of 1 Km around Forests: SC

    The Supreme Court has directed that every protected forest, national park and wildlife sanctuary across the country should have a mandatory eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of a minimum one km starting from their demarcated boundaries.

    Why such move?

    • The purpose of declaring ESZs around national parks, forests and sanctuaries is to create some kind of a “shock absorber” for the protected areas.
    • These zones would act as a transition zone from areas of high protection to those involving lesser protection.

    What are the Eco-sensitive Zones (ESZs)?

    • Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs) or Ecologically Fragile Areas (EFAs) are areas notified by the MoEFCC around Protected Areas, National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries.
    • The purpose of declaring ESZs is to create some kind of “shock absorbers” to the protected areas by regulating and managing the activities around such areas.
    • They also act as a transition zone from areas of high protection to areas involving lesser protection.

    How are they demarcated?

    • The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 does not mention the word “Eco-Sensitive Zones”.
    • However, Section 3(2)(v) of the Act, says that Central Government can restrict areas in which any industries, operations or processes or class of industries, operations or processes shall be carried out or shall not, subject to certain safeguards.
    • Besides Rule 5(1) of the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986 states that central government can prohibit or restrict the location of industries and carrying on certain operations or processes on the basis of certain considerations.
    • The same criteria have been used by the government to declare No Development Zones (NDZs).

    Defining its boundaries

    • An ESZ could go up to 10 kilometres around a protected area as provided in the Wildlife Conservation Strategy, 2002.
    • Moreover, in the case where sensitive corridors, connectivity and ecologically important patches, crucial for landscape linkage, are beyond 10 km width, these should be included in the ESZs.
    • Further, even in the context of a particular Protected Area, the distribution of an area of ESZ and the extent of regulation may not be uniform all around and it could be of variable width and extent.

     

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  • Posidonia Australis: World’s Largest Plant

    The world’s largest plant has recently been discovered off the West Coast of Australia: a seagrass 180 km in length.

    Posidonia australis

    • The ribbon weed, or Posidonia australis, has been discovered in Shark Bay by a group of researchers from Flinders University and The University of Western Australia.
    • These researchers have also found that the plant is 4,500 years old, is sterile, has double the number of chromosomes than other similar plants.
    • It has managed to survive the volatile atmosphere of the shallow Shark Bay.

    So how remarkable is this plant’s size?

    • The ribbon weed covers an area of 20,000 hectares.
    • The next on the podium, the second largest plant, is the clonal colony of a quaking Aspen tree in Utah, which covers 43.6 hectares.
    • The largest tree in India, the Great Banyan in Howrah’s Botanical Garden, covers 1.41 hectares.

    If it is so large, how come it has just been discovered?

    • The existence of the seagrass was known, that it is one single plant was not.
    • Researchers were interested in what they then thought was a meadow because they wanted to study its genetic diversity, and collect some parts for seagrass restoration.

    How did it grow, and survive for, so long?

    • Sometime in the Harappan era, a plant took root in the Shark Bay.
    • Then it kept spreading through its rhizomes, overcoming everything in its way, and here we are today.
    • Ribbon weed rhizomes can usually grow to around 35cm per year, which is how the scientists arrived at its lifespan of 4,5000 years.
    • The researchers found that the ribbon weed cannot spread its seeds, something that helps plants overcome environmental threats.
    • Also, Shark Bay sees fluctuations in temperature and salinity and gets a lot of light, conditions challenging for any plant.

    Ecological significance

    • Because seagrass performs a vital role in the environment, and if some of it is hardy, it is good news for everyone in a world threatened by climate change.
    • In India, seagrass is found in many coastal areas, most notably in Gulf of Mannar and Palk Strait.
    • Apart from being home to a variety of small organisms, seagrass trap sediments and prevent water from getting muddy, absorb carbon from the atmosphere, and prevent coastal erosion.

     

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  • Species in news: Eublepharis pictus

    A gecko found in Visakhapatnam in 2017, then thought to belong to a known species, has now been identified as a member of a new species.

    Eublepharis pictus

    • The species, Eublepharis pictus, also known as the Painted Leopard Gecko, has been described in the journal Evolutionary Systematics.
    • Phylogenetic study and morphological comparisons have distinguished it as a new species.
    • It is endemic to the forests of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
    • The gecko genus Eublepharis now has 7 species.

    Conservation status

    • The species occurs outside protected areas.
    • Most leopard geckos are killed when encountered.
    • Activists have called for raising awareness about the fact that the species is actually harmless.

     

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  • What are Community Forest Rights?

    The Chhattisgarh government has become the only second state in the country to recognize the Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights of a village inside a national park.

    What is the news?

    • The CFR rights of tribals living in a hamlet inside the Kanger Ghati National Park in Bastar district, were recognised.
    • It gave the community the power to formulate rules for forest use.

    Try this PYQ first:

    Q.Under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, who shall be the authority to initiate the process for determining the nature and extent of individual or community forest rights or both?

    (a) State Forest Department

    (b) District Collector/Deputy Commissioner

    (c) Tahsildar/Block Development Officer/Mandal Revenue Officer

    (d) Gram Sabha

     

     

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    What is a Community Forest?

    • The community forest resource area is the common forest land that has been traditionally protected and conserved for sustainable use by a particular community.
    • The community uses it to access resources available within the traditional and customary boundary of the village; and for seasonal use of landscape in case of pastoralist communities.
    • Each CFR area has a customary boundary with identifiable landmarks recognised by the community and its neighboring villages.
    • It may include forest of any category – revenue forest, classified & unclassified forest, deemed forest, DLC land, reserve forest, protected forest, sanctuary and national parks etc.

    Legal basis for Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights

    • The CFR rights are acknowledged under the Section 3(1) (i) of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act.
    • This is commonly referred to as the Forest Rights Act or the FRA.
    • It aims to provide for recognition of the right to “protect, regenerate or conserve or manage” the community forest resource.
    • These rights allow the community to formulate rules for forest use by itself and others and thereby discharge its responsibilities under Section 5 of the FRA.

    Nature of rights included

    • CFR rights, along with Community Rights (CRs) under Sections 3(1)(b) and 3(1)(c), which include: nistar rights and rights over non-timber forest products, ensure sustainable livelihoods of the community.
    • ‘Nistar’ means the concession granted for removal from forest coupes (small trees) on payment at stipulated rates, specified forest produce for bonafide domestic use, but not for barter or sale.
    • These rights give the authority to the Gram Sabha to adopt local traditional practices of forest conservation and management within the community forest resource boundary.

    Why is the recognition of CFR rights important?

    • Aimed at undoing the “historic injustice” meted out to forest-dependent communities due to curtailment of their customary rights over forests, the FRA came into force in 2008.
    • It is important as it recognises the community’s right to use, manage and conserve forest resources, and to legally hold forest land that these communities have used for cultivation and residence.
    • It also underlines the integral role that forest dwellers play in the sustainability of forests and in the conservation of biodiversity.
    • It is of greater significance inside protected forests like national parks, sanctuaries and tiger reserves as traditional dwellers then become a part of management of the protected forests.

    How many CFR certificates have been given in Chhattisgarh?

    • According to state government officials, Chhattisgarh has recognised nearly 4,000 CFR rights in the state.
    • Kanger Ghati National Park is the second national park, after Simlipal in Odisha, where CFR rights have been recognised.

     

     

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  • System of Rice Intensification (SRI) Technique

    Experts in Punjab has said that System of Rice Intensification (SRI) Technique is beneficial for the soil, environment and farmers at par with the Direct Seeding of Rice (DSR) technique.

    What is SRI technique?

    • SRI was first developed in Madagascar in the 1980s and since then several countries in the world have been practising it, including India.
    • It promises to save 15 to 20% ground water, improves rice productivity, which is almost at a stagnant point now.
    • Experts said that it gives equal or more produce than the conventional rice cultivation, with less water, less seed and less chemicals.
    • The net effect is a substantial reduction in the investments on external inputs.

    How does it take place in the field and in which soil?

    • First, the field is prepared by ploughing.
    • It should be laser levelled before transplanting for proper water management and efficiency for a good crop stand.
    • Then irrigation is applied in the field which is not a flooding of field like traditional methods but less than that of a well irrigated field.
    • Then 10-12 days old nursery (young paddy plants) along with soil particles around the root with minimum disturbance to the roots are transplanted in lines.
    • They are marked at a distance of 10 inches from each other with the help of a rope meter.

    Benefits over DSR technique

    • Unlike DSR, which is suitable only for mid to heavy textured soils, SRI is suitable in all types of soil including less fertile soil as in such soil the number of seedlings can be increased to double.
    • Under SRI 2kg seed is required to grow a nursery for one acre against 5kg seed required in the traditional method.

    Does the SRI method require continuous flooding after transplantation of nursery?

    • In traditional sowing from the day of transplanting till the crop turns 35-40 days fields are kept under flood-like conditions.
    • And then fields are filled every week till a few weeks before harvesting.
    • But SRI doesn’t require continuous flooding, it needs intermittent irrigation.
    • Indeed the plants’ roots should not be starved for oxygen through flooding.
    • Irrigation is given to maintain soil moisture near saturation initially, and water is added to the field when the surface soil develops hairline cracks.

    What are the limitations of SRI?

    • If unchecked, greater weed growth will cause substantial loss of yield.
    • In Punjab, it is not promoted by the government except demonstration plots sown over a decade ago.
    • It can be sustainable if organic inputs in the soil structure are maintained.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.With reference to the current trends in the cultivation of sugarcane in India, consider the following statements:

    1. A substantial saving in seed material is made when ‘bud chip settlings are raised in a nursery and transplanted in the main field.
    2. When direct planting of setts is done, the germination percentage is better with single-budded setts as compared to setts with many buds.
    3. If bad weather conditions prevail when setts are directly planted, single-budded setts have better survival as compared to large setts.
    4. Sugarcane can be cultivated using settlings prepared from tissue culture.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1 and 4 only

    (d) 2,3 and 4 only

     

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  • Species in news: Sela Macaque

    A new species of old world monkey recorded from Arunachal Pradesh has been named after a strategic Sela pass at 13,700 ft above sea level.

    Sela macaque (Macaca selai).

    • This new primate was identified and analysed by a team of experts from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and the University of Calcutta.
    • Earlier it was called as White- Cheeked Macaque displaying white cheeks, long and thick hairs on the neck area, and a longer tail.
    • Their study has been published in the latest edition of Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
    • Phylogenetics relate to the evolutionary development and diversification of a species or group of organisms.
    • The phylogenetic analysis revealed that the Sela macaque was geographically separated from the Arunachal macaque (Macaca munzala) of Tawang district by Sela.
    • This mountain pass acted as a barrier by restricting the migration of individuals of these two species for approximately two million years.

    Protection status

    • It has NOT been yet included in the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 of India.
    • The potential threat to all species of macaques in the landscape is due to hunting by locals for consumption and habitat degradation due to urbanization and infrastructure development.

     About Sela Pass

    • The Sela Pass is a high-altitude mountain pass located on the border between the Tawang and West Kameng districts in Arunachal Pradesh.
    • It has an elevation of 4170 m and connects the Indian Buddhist town of Tawang to Dirang and Guwahati.
    • The pass supports scarce amounts of vegetation and is usually snow-covered to some extent throughout the year.
    • While Sela Pass does get heavy snowfall in winters, it is usually open throughout the year unless landslides or snow require the pass to be shut down temporarily.
    • The strategically-significant Sela Tunnel project is now nearing completion well before the deadline.

     

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  • Hyper-accumulator Plants for Soil Detox

    A study published in the JNKVV (Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwavidyalaya) research journal concluded that heavy metal pollution of soil is “emerging at a speedy rate” in India due to industrialisation.

    How does soil get contaminated?

    • Soil contamination can happen due to a variety of reasons, including manufacturing, mineral extraction, accidental spills, illegal dumping, leaking underground storage tanks, pesticide and fertiliser use etc.
    • These toxic heavy metals are then absorbed by food crops and other plants before they eventually make their way into our food chain, directly affecting human life along with ecology.

    Detoxing the soil

    • Many technologies have emerged to remediate this soil pollution.
    • But these methods have been deemed lacking in terms of sustainability as they come with a large cost and have adverse effects themselves.

    Novel technique: Hyperaccumulators

    • Turning toward more sustainable and eco-friendly technologies, scientists have developed methods of “Phytoremediation”.
    • It is a remediation method that uses living organisms like plants, microalgae, and seaweeds.
    • One particular way to remove toxic heavy metals from the soil includes the use of “hyperaccumulator” plants that absorb these substances from the soil.

    What are hyperaccumulator plants?

    • Phytoremediation refers to the usage of “hyperaccumulator” plants to absorb the toxic materials present in the soil and accumulate in their living tissue.
    • Most plants do sometimes accumulate toxic substances.
    • Hyperaccumulators have the unusual ability to absorb hundreds or thousands of times greater amounts of these substances than is normal for most plants.
    • Most discovered hyperaccumulator plants typically accumulate nickel and occur on soils that are rich in nickel, cobalt and in some cases, manganese.

    Where are they found?

    • These hyperaccumulator species have been discovered in many parts of the world.
    • They include the Mediterranean region (mainly plants of the genus Alyssum), tropical outcrops in Brazi, Cuba, New Caledonia (French territory) and Southeast Asia (mainly plants of the genus Phyllanthus).

    How can they be used to remove toxic metals from the soil?

    • Suitable plant species can be used to ‘pick up’ the pollutants from the soil through their roots and transport them to their stem, leaves and other parts.
    • After this, these plants can be harvested and either disposed or even used to extract these toxic metals from the plant.
    • This process can be used to remove metals like silver, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, mercury, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, lead and zinc; metalloids such as arsenic and selenium; some radionuclides; and non-metallic components such as boron.
    • But it cannot be used to remove organic pollutants from the ground due to metabolic breakdown.

    Advantages of phytoremediation with hyperaccumulators

    • One of the primary advantages of phytoremediation is the fact that it is quite cost-effective in comparison with other remediation methods.
    • The only major costs attached are related to crop management (planting, weed control, watering, fertilisation, pruning, fencing, harvesting etc.).
    • This method is also relatively simple and doesn’t require any new kinds of specialised technology.
    • Also, no external energy source is required since the plants grow with the help of sunlight.
    • Another important advantage of this method is that it enriches the soil with organic substances and microorganisms which can protect its chemical and biological qualities.
    • Also, while the plants are growing and accumulating toxic heavy metals, they protect the soil from erosion due to wind and water.

    Limitations of hyperaccumulators

    • For all its advantages, this kind of phytoremediation with hyperaccumulators has a big drawback: it is a very slow and time-consuming process.
    • The restoration of an area with this process can take up to 10 years or more.
    • This comes with a large economic cost, proportional to the size of the area under rehabilitation.
    • The plants to conduct this rehabilitation must be carefully selected based on a large number of characteristics or they could act as an invasive species.
    • They could grow out of control and upsetting the delicate ecological balance of not just the area under rehabilitation, but also the entire region it is part of.

    What can be done for their better utilization?

    • Due to this reason, scientists only propose using species that are native to the region where the phytoremediation project is undertaken.
    • This also has other benefits: these plants will already be acclimatised to the region and there will be no legal problems concerning the procurement, transport and use of seeds.

     

     

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