• The Uttarakhand State Wildlife Board has cleared a proposal by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) to introduce rhinoceroses in the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) to boost tourism and revive the habits of species that survive on low-height grass. Rhinos were once found in the Terai grassland in the state and adjoining areas but were wiped out by poaching.
• The geographical terrain and environmental conditions in CTR are suitable for rhinos. The ideal sites chosen in Corbett are valley habitats bounded on either side by the lower Himalayas (north), Shivalik Hills (south) and the Ramganga Reservoir (east), which would also act as natural barriers to rhino movement outside these area, there by minimising conflict with people.

• The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) added 1,840 new species to its catalogue of plants and animals that risk extinction. The list now contains more than 30,000 species under threat of disappearing. The IUCN mentioned it was increasingly clear that climate change on its own was a growing threat.
• The latest update was released at COP25 climate talks in Madrid.

• It was an exercise conducted at sea off Vadinar in Gulf of Kutch by the Indian Coast Guard to reinforce the response mechanism for oil spill/pollution incidents and to fine-tune the actions required in such eventualities.
• The Gulf of Kutch (GoK) region handles 70 per cent of the oil imported by India and 11 Single point Moorings (SPMs) out of total 27 SPMs i.e. 42 per cent in the country are located in this area.

• Beaches in Maharashtra are more polluted with microplastics and macroplastics than those in Goa and Karnataka, according to a study conducted by Goa-based National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).
• The study has blamed plastic industries located near the shore and increased tourism activities for the pollution.
• Plastics less than five millimeters in length are called 'microplastics' and the relatively larger particles, of more than 5 mm, are classified as 'macroplastics'.

• Using DNA from museum specimens, researchers have found that South China Salamander (Andrias sligoi) is the largest amphibian.
• Chinese giant salamanders, which are critically endangered and can grow to nearly 2m long, were previously thought to be of a single species until new research revealed not one, but three different genetic lineages. Only two of them have been analysed by the researchers.

• Researchers from Utrecht University have revealed a piece of continental crust, named Greater Adria for the Adriatic region it settled in, broke away from North Africa more than 200 million years ago.
• Much of the territory was plunged into the earth’s mantle, however some of the landmass has remained visible – making up a strip of land across Italy that stretches from Turin in the north to Puglia in the south.
• Earth’s modern-day continents were joined together in one Pac-Man-shaped supercontinent known as Pangea, which eventually split into two fragments: Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south.

Other Recent Discoveries

• Mauritia: A lava-covered piece of continent found under the popular island of Mauritius in Indian Ocean.
• Zealandia: It is located in the southern Pacific Ocean, including New Zealand, New Caledonia and two Australian islands, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. The continent spans 1.9 million square miles but the bulk of it 94% is under the Pacific Ocean.

• It was a campaign launched on World Rhino Day on September 22 by WWF India and Animal Planet with Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma as the face of the programme to help build awareness for the need to conserve the Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros or the Indian Rhino.
• It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
• It is the state animal of Assam.
• There are an estimated 3,500 Indian rhinos left in the world, out of which 82 per cent are found in India.
• Once found abundantly across the Indus, Ganges and the Brahmaputra river basins, the animal is now found only in select pockets in Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

• The National Green Tribunal has rapped the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for the delay in issuing a notification to ban RO purifiers where total dissolved solids (TDS) in water are below 500 milligrams per litre and sensitise public about the ill-effects of demineralised water.

• It is a 1,400km-long and 5km-wide green corridor all the way from Panipat in Haryana to Porbandar in Gujarat, at its conception stage.
• The corridor will act as a barrier against the heat and dust that blows in from the west.
• The Aravalli range, which separates western India’s Thar Desert from the relatively green plains to its east, has lost so much green cover that it is losing its ability to act as a natural barrier.
• It would be modelled on the so-called Great Green Wall of Africa that was envisioned to run from Djibouti in the continent’s east to Senegal in its west.

• The 29th ministerial meeting of the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries on Climate Change was held at Beijing, China.
• BASIC countries have urged developed nations to adhere to the commitment made under the Paris Agreement and provide finance and technology to the developing world.