[Mission 2024] STATIC QUIZ, 16 November 2023 – Environment

Solution: b)

Statement 1 and 2 are correct.

The CBD is not just about the conservation and restoration of ecosystems. It is also about sustainable use of natural resources, and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of these resources. For example, if a European pharmaceutical company wants to make use of some medicinal properties of plants grown in Tamil Nadu, the benefits of such use, monetary or otherwise, must be equitably shared among all stakeholders, including the indigenous populations that are custodians of that specific biological resource.

Cartagena and Nagoya

• The CBD has given rise to two ‘supplementary’ agreements — the Cartagena Protocol of 2003 and the Nagoya Protocol of 2014. Both agreements take their names from the places where they were negotiated.
• The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety seeks to protect biodiversity from genetically modified organisms by ensuring their safe handling, transport and use. Genetically modified crops, for example, can interfere with natural ecosystems in ways that might not yet be fully understood. That is the reason why GM crops are cultivated on segregated farms.
• The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing deals with the commercial utilisation of biological and genetic resources, for example, by pharma companies. It asks the host countries to provide access to its genetic resources in a legal, fair and non-arbitrary manner and, as mentioned above, offers them a fair

and equitable share of benefits arising out of the utilisation of those resources.

Solution: b)

Statement 1 is incorrect.

• The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent intergovernmental body established by States to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development.
• It was established in Panama City, on 21 April 2012 by 94 Governments.
• It is not a United Nations body.  However, at the request of the IPBES Plenary and with the authorization of the UNEP Governing Council in 2013, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provides secretariat services to IPBES. It is intended to serve a similar role to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Solution: b)

Statement 2 is incorrect.

Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

World Network of Biosphere Reserves, created in 1971 by UNESCO. 

The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve was the first biosphere reserve in India designated in the year 1986 by UNESCO. It stretches across the States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

Solution: b)

Statement 3 is incorrect.

Established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the IPCC produces comprehensive assessment reports (ARs) that are considered the most authoritative source of scientific knowledge on climate change. So far, it has released six ARs — the final synthesis report of the sixth AR came out in March 2023 — and with the latest elections, the body has initiated a new cycle of producing the next AR.

Solution: b)

Statement 3 is incorrect.

CITES is an international agreement to which States and regional economic integration organizations adhere voluntarily. States that have agreed to be bound by the Convention (‘joined’ CITES) are known as Parties. Although CITES is legally binding on the Parties – in other words they have to implement the Convention – it does not take the place of national laws. Rather it provides a framework to be respected by each Party, which has to adopt its own domestic legislation to ensure that CITES is implemented at the national level.

CITES was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of IUCN (The World Conservation Union).