CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 88 of 120

Correct — B, Gulf of Mannar biosphere reserve. The description in the stem is a list of coastal habitats gathered around islands, and that is the Gulf of Mannar's defining feature: a chain of twenty-one uninhabited islands strung between Rameswaram and Tuticorin along the Tamil Nadu coast, with coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves around them and estuaries, beaches and salt marshes on the adjoining shore. Those islands and the reefs around them were declared a Marine National Park in 1986 and the wider area a biosphere reserve in 1989; UNESCO added it to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves in 2001 and describes it as one of the world's richest regions from a marine biodiversity point of view. It is also the flagship habitat of the dugong in Indian waters.

• (a)Sunderban biosphere reserve — The Sundarban has estuaries and the largest mangrove forest in the world, but the fresh water and heavy silt of the delta prevent coral from growing there — and its islands are deltaic mudflats rather than reef-fringed islands with beaches.
• (c)Nilgiri biosphere reserve — The Nilgiri biosphere reserve is entirely inland, spread over the Western Ghats where Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka meet. It has no coast, and therefore none of the habitats listed.
• (d)Nandadevi biosphere reserve — The Nanda Devi biosphere reserve is high Himalaya in Uttarakhand, a country of glaciers, alpine meadows and temperate forest with no marine element at all.

A biosphere reserve is a designation for a large area managed on three principles at once — conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use by the people who live there, and research and education — and is organised into a strictly protected core, a buffer and a transition zone. India has a national list of biosphere reserves, a subset of which UNESCO has recognised on its World Network under the Man and the Biosphere programme. The Gulf of Mannar was the first marine biosphere reserve in the country.

Three of the four options can be eliminated on geography alone: Nilgiri is inland forest, Nanda Devi is high mountain, and although the Sundarban is coastal it is a river delta rather than an island-and-reef system. That leaves the Gulf of Mannar, and the corroborating detail is the islands. The reserve's exact figures vary between sources — the marine national park covers about 560 square kilometres of islands and surrounding reef and shallow water, while the biosphere reserve as a whole is far larger — so it is safer to remember the twenty-one islands and the habitat list than to quote an area.

• The Gulf of Mannar biosphere reserve is built around twenty-one uninhabited islands lying between Rameswaram and Tuticorin off the Tamil Nadu coast.
• Its principal habitats are coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves, with estuaries, beaches and salt marshes along the adjoining shore.
• The islands and surrounding reef were declared a Marine National Park in 1986 and the biosphere reserve was notified in 1989.
• UNESCO added the Gulf of Mannar to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves in 2001, and it was the first marine biosphere reserve in India.
• The dugong is the flagship mammal of these waters.

• Assuming the Sundarban must qualify because it is coastal and has mangroves; it has no coral.
• Confusing the Marine National Park, which covers the islands and their reefs, with the much larger biosphere reserve around it.
• Treating every Indian biosphere reserve as a UNESCO-listed one; only a subset is on the World Network.

As a habitat description to be matched to a reserve, as a which-of-these-has-coral item, or as a reserve-to-State pairing.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Gulf of Mannar biosphere reserve lies off the coast of which one of the following States?

  • (a)Kerala
  • (b)Tamil Nadu
  • (c)Andhra Pradesh
  • (d)Karnataka

  Answer(b) Tamil Nadu — its islands lie between Rameswaram and Tuticorin along that coast.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is the flagship marine mammal of the Gulf of Mannar?

  • (a)Dugong
  • (b)Ganges river dolphin
  • (c)Blue whale
  • (d)Sea otter

  Answer(a) Dugong — the seagrass beds of the Gulf are its main habitat in Indian waters.