CDS (I) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 89 of 120

Correct — A, Panna Tiger Reserve. The Panna Biosphere Reserve, spread over about 2,999 square kilometres in the Panna and Chhatarpur districts of Madhya Pradesh, was added to UNESCO's World Network of Biosphere Reserves in 2020 — India's twelfth entry on that network at the time. The Ken flows for some seventy-two kilometres through the park. Panna also carries one of the better-known conservation stories in the country: its tigers were wiped out by poaching around 2009, animals were brought in from other reserves that year, breeding began in 2010, and the population has since been rebuilt into one of the more successful big-cat restorations anywhere.

• (b)Namdapha Tiger Reserve — Namdapha in Arunachal Pradesh is a national park and tiger reserve, and appears on lists of potential future biosphere reserves, but it has not been designated one.
• (c)Dudhwa Tiger Reserve — Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh is a tiger reserve on the Nepal border and is not a biosphere reserve.
• (d)Pench Tiger Reserve — Pench, straddling Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, is a tiger reserve; the biosphere reserve in that part of the Satpura country is Pachmarhi, which joined the UNESCO network in 2009.

A biosphere reserve is a different instrument from a national park or a tiger reserve. It is zoned — a strictly protected core, a buffer where research and limited use are allowed, and a transition area where communities live and work — and its purpose is to reconcile conservation with human use rather than to exclude people. India has eighteen biosphere reserves declared under its own Man and the Biosphere programme, of which thirteen are now on the UNESCO network, from Nilgiri in 2000 through Panna in 2020 to Cold Desert in 2025.

The stem gives away more than it appears to. All four options are tiger reserves, so the question is which of them also carries the separate UNESCO designation, and the year in the stem pins it to one addition. It is worth keeping the two lists apart in the first place — India has more than fifty tiger reserves and eighteen biosphere reserves, and the overlap is small. Anchor the answer to the exam and then update: since 2020 the network has taken in Cold Desert in Himachal Pradesh, so India's UNESCO count has moved from twelve to thirteen.

• Panna Biosphere Reserve, about 2,999 square kilometres in Madhya Pradesh, was added to the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves in 2020.
• Panna Tiger Reserve lies in the Panna and Chhatarpur districts, and the Ken flows about seventy-two kilometres through the park.
• Thirteen of India's eighteen biosphere reserves are on the UNESCO network — Nilgiri 2000, Gulf of Mannar and Sundarbans 2001, Nanda Devi 2004, Nokrek, Pachmarhi and Simlipal 2009, Achanakmar-Amarkantak 2012, Great Nicobar 2013, Agasthyamalai 2016, Khangchendzonga 2018, Panna 2020, Cold Desert 2025.
• Panna lost its tigers to poaching around 2009 and was restocked from other reserves that year.
• Namdapha, Dudhwa and Pench are tiger reserves but not biosphere reserves.

• Assuming every famous tiger reserve is also a biosphere reserve; the two designations overlap only rarely.
• Confusing Pench with Pachmarhi, which is the biosphere reserve of that region.
• Quoting a count of Indian sites on the UNESCO network without a date; the number has changed since this paper was set.

As a which-site-received-which-designation item, or as a match-list pairing biosphere reserves with their states.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Panna Biosphere Reserve is located in which one of the following states?

  • (a)Chhattisgarh
  • (b)Madhya Pradesh
  • (c)Maharashtra
  • (d)Rajasthan

  Answer(b) Madhya Pradesh — in the Panna and Chhatarpur districts, with the Ken flowing through it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following was the first Indian biosphere reserve to be included in the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves?

  • (a)Nanda Devi
  • (b)Nilgiri
  • (c)Sundarbans
  • (d)Gulf of Mannar

  Answer(b) Nilgiri — added in 2000, ahead of Gulf of Mannar and Sundarbans in 2001 and Nanda Devi in 2004.