Which one of the following is the world’s richest region from a marine biodiversity perspective, comprising twenty-one islands with estuaries, beaches, forests of the nearshore environment, sea grasse

Question

Which one of the following is the world’s richest region from a marine biodiversity perspective, comprising twenty-one islands with estuaries, beaches, forests of the nearshore environment, sea grasses, coral reefs, salt marshes and mangroves?

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Correct — A, Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve. Every clause of the stem describes this one reserve and no other, and two of them are near-quotations. UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere entry for Gulf of Mannar — on the World Network of Biosphere Reserves since 2001 — calls it "one of the world's richest regions from a marine biodiversity perspective" and records 4,223 species of plants and animals across about 10,500 sq km, which is where the stem's superlative comes from. The "twenty-one islands" is the harder half of the clue and it is exact: the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve Trust, a registered trust of the Government of Tamil Nadu, states that the area of 560 sq km "encompassing 21 uninhabited islands, surrounding coral reef areas and shallow water habitat" was declared a Marine National Park in 1986. Those 21 islands form a chain along the coast between Rameswaram and Tuticorin (Thoothukudi) in four groups — Mandapam (7 islands: Musal, Manoli, Manoliputti, Poomarichan, Pullivasal, Krusadai, Shingle), Keezhakkarai (7), Vembar (3) and Thoothukudi (4: Vaan, Koswari, Kariyachalli, Vilanguchalli) — and their combined land area is only about 6 sq km, so the reserve is overwhelmingly sea. The seven habitats the stem lists occur together only here among the four options, because only the Gulf of Mannar has true coral reefs and extensive seagrass meadows alongside estuaries, beaches, salt marshes and mangroves. India notified the reserve in 1989, and it was the first marine biosphere reserve not merely in India but in all of South and South-East Asia. Its standing has since been reinforced: MoEFCC's official list of Ramsar Sites of India records "Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere Reserve", Tamil Nadu, as designated on 08-04-2022 over 52,672 hectares. One honest caveat on wording — UNESCO writes "one of the world's richest" where the stem hardens it to "the world's richest". The superlative is exam shorthand; the identification it points to is not in doubt.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Nanda Devi is a high-Himalayan, wholly land-locked reserve in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand — notified in 1988, on UNESCO's World Network since 2004, about 5,860 sq km, built around the 7,816 m Nanda Devi peak and the Nanda Devi National Park and Valley of Flowers World Heritage Site. It has glaciers, alpine meadows and temperate forest; it has no coast, no islands, no coral and no mangrove. Candidates pick it only because it is the most famous name on the list.  (c) The most tempting wrong answer, because the Sundarbans genuinely is an island-studded coastal reserve with estuaries, mudflats, salt marsh and the world's largest mangrove forest, notified in 1989 and on UNESCO's network since 2001. Two things break the match. Its deltaic islands number far more than twenty-one, and its heavy freshwater discharge and silt load make the water too turbid for coral reefs or seagrass meadows — which is why UPSC's own 2014 coral-reef question excludes the Sundarbans while including the Gulf of Mannar.  (d) The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve was India's first biosphere reserve, notified in 1986 and inscribed on UNESCO's World Network in 2000, covering about 5,520 sq km across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka and taking in Mudumalai, Bandipur, Nagarhole, Wayanad, Silent Valley and Mukurthi. It is entirely an inland Western Ghats montane and moist-deciduous forest complex. Its claim to biodiversity fame is terrestrial and floral, not marine, and it contains no island, reef or estuary.

Concept: A biosphere reserve is not a stricter national park; it is a UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) category — the programme was launched in 1971 — built for people and nature together, and it is zoned in three rings: a legally protected core where only research is allowed, a buffer where regulated ecological activity is permitted, and a transition zone of farms, fishing villages and settlements. That is why biosphere reserves are so much larger than the national parks inside them. At Gulf of Mannar the core is the 560 sq km Marine National Park of 1986, while the reserve as a whole runs to about 10,500 sq km and holds roughly 2.5 million people in some 47 coastal villages, many of them Marakeyars whose livelihood is fishing — a population that a park notification could never have excluded, and the reason the biosphere category was used at all. Day-to-day management sits with the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve Trust, a registered trust of the Government of Tamil Nadu set up specifically to run the reserve with its fisher communities rather than against them. India runs 18 biosphere reserves, of which 13 are on UNESCO's World Network; Gulf of Mannar, notified in 1989 and internationally recognised in 2001, is the only one whose core is water — India's first marine biosphere reserve and the first in South and South-East Asia.

State PCS 2023 Q93 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2023 Q93 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer