QUIZ – 2020: INSIGHTS STATIC , 13 July 2021 – Environment – INSIGHTSIAS

Solution: b)

The Global Tiger Initiative (GTI) was launched in 2008 as a global alliance of governments, international organizations, civil society, the conservation and scientific communities and the private sector, with the aim of working together to save wild tigers from extinction. In 2013, the scope was broadened to include Snow Leopards.

The GTI’s founding partners included the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Smithsonian Institution, Save the Tiger Fund, and International Tiger Coalition (representing more than 40 non-government organizations). The initiative is led by the 13 tiger range countries (TRCs).

In November 2010, leaders of the tiger range countries (TRCs) assembled at an International Tiger Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia to adopt the St. Petersburg Declaration on Tiger Conservation and endorsed its implementation mechanism, called the Global Tiger Recovery Program. Their overarching goal was to double the number of wild tigers across their geographical area from about 3,200 to more than 7,000 by 2022.

Solution: d)

According to environmentalists, the turtles play a significant role in the river by scavenging dead organic materials and diseased fish, controlling fish population as predators and controlling aquatic plants and weeds. They are also described as indicators of healthy aquatic ecosystems.

However, these species are now under severe threats due to habitat fragmentation and loss through dams and barrages, pollution, illegal poaching, accidental drowning through fishing nets and threats to their nesting habitats, a report jointly prepared by the National Mission for Clean Ganga and Wildlife Institute of India has said.

The turtles have come under serious threat primarily for two reasons — food and the flourishing pet trade.

Solution: d)

• The energy required for the life within the biosphere usually comes from the sun. But, Chemosynthetic bacteria are organisms that use inorganic molecules as a source of energy and convert them into organic substances. They do not need sunlight for their survival.
• Chemosynthetic bacteria, unlike plants, obtain their energy from the oxidation of inorganic molecules, rather than photosynthesis. Chemosynthetic bacteria use inorganic molecules, such as ammonia, molecular

hydrogen, sulfur, hydrogen sulfide and ferrous iron to produce the organic compounds needed for their subsistence.

• Most chemosynthetic bacteria live in environments where sunlight is unable to penetrate and which are considered inhospitable to most known organisms.

Ecotone is a zone of junction between two or more diverse ecosystems. For e.g. the mangrove forests represent an ecotone between marine and terrestrial ecosystem. It may be very narrow or quite wide, but not larger than a biome which is a much larger entity. Well-developed ecotones contain some organisms which are entirely different from that of the adjoining communities.

Solution: b)

A carbon credit is a generic term for any tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide or the equivalent amount of a different greenhouse gas. The mechanism was formalized in the Kyoto Protocol.

Carbon credits and carbon markets are a component of national and international attempts to mitigate the growth in concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

Solution: b)

Seedless fruits are obtained by spraying the flowers with growth hormone like auxin. The ovary gets converted into fruit before fertilisation, and because fertilization hasn’t occurred, the seed does not develop in the fruit.