Current Affairs - Biodiversity

India has designated five (5) new wetlands of International importance making a total of 54 Ramsar sites in the country.

• The recently added sites are in three states:

Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India have discovered a new species of primate in Arunachal Pradesh.

• The species is called Sela Macaque, named after the Sela pass situated between Dirang and Tawang towns in western Arunachal Pradesh.

Recently, in an important discovery, scientists recorded presence of White-Cheeked Macaque (Macaca leucogenys) from central Arunachal Pradesh in India.

Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR) in Erode district of Tamil Nadu has won the TX2 award for doubling its tiger population to 80 since 2010.

• Bardia National Park in Nepal has also won this year’s TX2 award.

Recently, a Royal Bengal tiger was sighted at the Buxa reserve - a first such sighting in 23 years.

Buxa Tiger Rserve(BRT)

Location

• It is situated in the Alipurduar Sub-division of Jalpaiguri District, West Bengal.

Recently, the Botanical Survey of India released its new publication ‘Plant Discoveries 2020’. It has added 267 new taxa/ species to the country’s flora.

• The 267 new discoveries include 119 angiosperms; 3 pteridophytes; 5 bryophytes, 44 lichens; 57 fungi, 21 algae and 18 microbes.
• In 2020, 202 new plant species were discovered across the country and 65 new records were added.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has designated Mura-Drava-Danube (MDD) as the world’s first ‘five-country biosphere reserve’.

Aim

• The strategy’s aim is to revitalise 25,000 km of rivers and protect 30 per cent of the European Union’s land area by 2030.

Tamil Nadu state government has announced to set up India’s first dugong conservation reserve at the northern part of the Palk Bay.

Four more wetlands from India got recognition from the Ramsar Secretariat as Ramsar sites.

On 5th October, 2020, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)released an assessment according to which the annual economic value of ecosystem services provided by the Delhi Zoo works out to be Rs 426 crore.