PRELIMS BOOSTER 2018 : Forest Owlet (Heteroglaux blewitti) and South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC)

PRELIMS BOOSTER 2018

Forest Owlet (Heteroglaux blewitti) and South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC)

Forest Owlet (Heteroglaux blewitti)

1. Critically endangered –IUCN
2. It had been lost for more than a century. It has an interesting history. When not sighted for decades, posters were printed and Salim Ali, the premier ornithologist of India made a public appeal to look for the bird. After 113 long years, the owlet was rediscovered in 1997 and reappeared on the list of Indian birds
3. Habitat

• Dry deciduous forest
• Range : endemic to the forests of central India
• South Madhya Pradesh, in north-west Maharashtra and north-central Maharashtra

4. Threats

• Logging operations, burning and cutting of trees for firewood and timber damage roosting and nesting trees of the Forest Owlet
• encroachment for cultivation, grazing (reduce habitat suitability) and settlements
• threats from development projects such as the widening of state/national highways (Kanha-Pench Corridor), minor irrigation dams
• suffers predation from a number of native raptors, limiting productivity, and it faces competition for a limited number of nesting cavities
• hunted by local people and body parts and eggs are used for local customs, such as the making of drums
• Pesticides and rodenticides are used to an unknown degree within its range and may pose an additional threat
• severe drought conditions which as well its direct effects on forest may also lead to increased anthropogenic pressures on the habitat  

5. Conservation — CITES Appendix I

South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC)

1. Subregional program, set up in 2001
2. Headquarter : Manila, Philippines
3. Members : Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka
4. Objective : promote regional prosperity by improving cross-border connectivity, boosting trade among member countries, and strengthening regional economic cooperation
5. SASEC priority areas of cooperation

• transport
• trade facilitation
• energy
• economic corridor development (ECD

6. In 2016, the SASEC countries approved the SASEC Operational Plan 2016-2025, a 10-year strategic roadmap.
7. SASEC Secretariat — ADB serves as the SASEC Secretariat