Tag: rules are for everyone

Minerals are natural resources. Remaining ones are man-made.

'The National Institute of Oceanography' (NIO) has its headquarters at Panaji in Goa and regional centers at Kochi, Mumbai and Visakhapatnam. It is one of the 38 constituent laboratories of the 'Council of Scientific and Industrial Research' (CSIR), New Delhi. Thus, the correct answer is option B.

Forest usually refers to an area of dense vegetation, where uncultivated plants grow and undomesticated animals live. Deforestation refers to tree felling and destroys the forests. Tree felling and clearing land for agricultural or other purpose is an anti forest activity. 

Dehradun is the capital city of Uttarakhand in the northern part of India, located in the Garhwal region. It has tropical deciduous forests. Climate is warm with alternate wet and dry periods. Rainfall is 90 to 160 cm. Vegetation includes broad leaved trees, which shed their leaves during dry season e.g., Butea, Bombax, Shorea, Dalbergia etc.

In India 6, 77,088 square kilometer of land is under forest cover. The figure was 30 percent at the beginning of 20th century. About 24% of Indian land is covered by forest.The 2013 Forest Survey of India states its forest cover increased to 69.8 million hectares by 2012.

Forests have three important types of function as following :

1. Productive functions (or economic uses) - Forests provide a number of articles of economic use e.g : wood, resins, alkaloids etc.
2. Protective functions (or ecological uses) - Forest provide protection from radiation, heat, noise, besides providing protection against pollution and soil erosion.
3. Regulative functions - Forests helps maintain ecological balance by participating in biogeochemical cycles, checking flood and droughts etc.

India has three biodiversity hot spots Indo Burma, Western Ghats and Himalaya. Western Ghats occur along the western coast of India for a distance of about 1600 kilometers in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala extending over to Sri lanka. At low elevation up to 500 meters above sea level, the area contains tropical evergreen rain forests, while semi evergreen forests occur at a level of 500 meter to 1500 meters. Major centers of biodiversity are Agasthyamalai Hills, Silent Valley and Amambalam reserve. There is a high degree of endemism of rare plants and animals as well as richness of species of flowering plants, amphibians, reptiles, some mammals and butterflies.

Forests have following important types of function-

1. Productive functions- forests provide a number of articles of economic use e.g., wood, resins, alkaloids, medicines etc.
2. Protective functions- forest provide protection from radiation, heat, noise, besides providing protection against pollution and soil erosion, maintaining food chains and webs and thus maintaining ecological balance.
3. Regulative functions- forests helps maintain ecological balance by participating in biogeochemical cycles, checking flood and droughts etc. 

Joint forest management or JFM is a programme launched by Government of India in 1988 and guidelines issued in 1990. It aims at establishing partnership between local communities and state forest departments. It is practised in 10.25 million hectares of degraded forests through 36,075 village forest protection committees. It is useful to local and tribal people as they become partners in conservation of forests.