Prelims · Environment & ecology · 23 questions

Protected areas & conservation

Every UPSC Prelims question on this topic, 2016–2026, newest first. Tap an option to check yourself; the answer and explanation open below it.

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UPSC syllabus: “General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change - that do not require subject specialization.” See the full syllabus →

Prelims 2019 · Q18

Medium

Which one of the following National Parks lies completely in the temperate alpine zone?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (d) Valley of Flowers National Park

The Valley of Flowers in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, is a high-altitude West Himalayan park of alpine meadows, lying wholly above the tree-dominated lower zones. The other three begin in the foothills or low valleys and climb through tropical and subtropical forests, so they are not completely temperate alpine.

✓ (d) Part of the Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers World Heritage Site, it is known for meadows of endemic alpine flowers in the high West Himalaya, in the transition between the Zanskar and Great Himalaya ranges.
✗ (a) Manas in Assam lies on a gentle slope in the Himalayan foothills with alluvial grasslands and tropical forests — a lowland park.
✗ (b) Namdapha in Arunachal Pradesh rises from about 200 m to 4,571 m, so it runs from tropical evergreen forest up to alpine vegetation rather than lying wholly in one zone.
✗ (c) Neora Valley in West Bengal is known for dense subtropical and temperate forest on the Eastern Himalayan slopes, not for a park lying wholly in the alpine belt.

Remember · Valley of Flowers NP (Chamoli, Uttarakhand) = wholly alpine meadows; part of the Nanda Devi–Valley of Flowers World Heritage Site (1988, extended 2005).

Sources

UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks ↗ “Nestled high in West Himalaya, India’s Valley of Flowers National Park is renowned for its meadows of endemic alpine flowers and outstanding natural beauty.”
UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Manas Wildlife Sanctuary ↗ “On a gentle slope in the foothills of the Himalayas, where wooded hills give way to alluvial grasslands and tropical forests, the Manas sanctuary is home to a great variety of wildlife”
UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Tentative List: Namdapha National Park (Government of India) ↗ “The park spans a wide altitudinal range from 200 m to 4,571 m at Dapha Bum, the highest point in the park.”
Kalimpong District (Government of West Bengal): Flora and Fauna ↗ “The Neora Valley National Park (88 sq. km), on the north-eastern face of the district with its dense subtropical and impenetrable temperate forest, is a national asset.”

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2019, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

Prelims 2019 · Q22

Easy

Consider the following statements:

1.Asiatic lion is naturally found in India only.
2.Double-humped camel is naturally found in India only.
3.One-horned rhinoceros is naturally found in India only.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (a) 1 only

Only the Asiatic lion is confined to India today, surviving in and around Gir in Gujarat. The double-humped (Bactrian) camel is a Central Asian animal that survives in India only in Ladakh's Nubra valley, and the one-horned rhinoceros also lives in Nepal's Terai, for example in Chitwan.

✓ 1. The Asiatic lion once ranged from West Asia to central India, but since the early 20th century its wild range has shrunk to the Gir National Park and surrounding areas of Gujarat.
✗ 2. The Bactrian or two-humped camel belongs to Central Asia; India's small herd in the Nubra valley of Ladakh is a remnant of the old Central Asian trade routes, so the species is not found only in India.
✗ 3. The greater one-horned rhinoceros lives in northern India (Kaziranga, Manas, Jaldapara and others) and in southern Nepal, where Chitwan holds one of its last populations.

Remember · India-only: Asiatic lion (Gir). Shared: one-horned rhino (India + Nepal), Bactrian camel (Central Asia; in India only Nubra, Ladakh).

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 10 Contemporary India – II, Ch 2 (practise this chapter)

Sources

PIB, Ministry of Environment and Forests: Lion as a National Animal (Rajya Sabha reply) ↗ “the Gir forest has the only wild population of Asiatic lion ( Panthera leo persica ) in the world.”
Environment Ministry (Parivesh), Conservation value of Nubra protected area ↗ “there is a herd of feral double humped (Bactrian) camel in Nubra, which is a remnant of the Central Asian trade that passed through this region.”
ICAR-National Research Centre on Camel: Double Humped Camel (archived copy) ↗ “A small population of bactrian camel exists in the Nubra valley of Ladakh (J&K).”
UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Chitwan National Park (Nepal) ↗ “Nestled at the foot of the Himalayas, Chitwan has a particularly rich flora and fauna and is home to one of the last populations of single-horned Asiatic rhinoceros”
UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Kaziranga National Park (India) ↗ “It is inhabited by the world's largest population of one-horned rhinoceroses, as well as many mammals, including tigers, elephants, panthers and bears, and thousands of birds.”
NCERT Class 10 · Contemporary India – II, Chapter 2 “including the tiger, the one- horned rhinoceros, the Kashmir stag or hangul, three types of crocodiles”

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2019, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

Prelims 2019 · Q27

Medium

Which of the following are in Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (a) Neyyar, Peppara and Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuaries; and Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve

Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve, at the southern end of the Western Ghats, takes in three Kerala wildlife sanctuaries (Shendurney, Peppara and Neyyar) and the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve of Tamil Nadu.

✓ (a) UNESCO's description of the reserve names exactly these: the Shendurney, Peppara and Neyyar wildlife sanctuaries and the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve. The reserve spans districts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
✗ (b) This mixes sites from the Nilgiri and Wayanad hills further north in the Western Ghats; none is part of Agasthyamala.
✗ (c) Kaundinya, Gundla Brahmeswaram and Papikonda are sanctuaries of Andhra Pradesh, and Mukurthi is in the Nilgiris of Tamil Nadu, so the set cannot belong to Agasthyamala.
✗ (d) Kawal, Sri Venkateswara and Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam are in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, far from Agasthyamala.

Remember · Agasthyamala BR (Tamil Nadu and Kerala): Shendurney, Peppara, Neyyar sanctuaries plus Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve.

Sources

UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme: Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve ↗ “The reserve includes three wildlife sanctuaries, Shendurney, Peppara and Neyyar, as well as the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve.”

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2019, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

Prelims 2019 · Q29

Hard

Consider the following pairs:

	Wildlife	Naturally found in
1.	Blue-finned Mahseer	Cauvery River
2.	Irrawaddy Dolphin	Chambal River
3.	Rusty-spotted Cat	Eastern Ghats

Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (c) 1 and 3 only

Why not the tempting option · UPSC's key is (c). Pair 1 holds on the reading 'lives wild in the Cauvery': the blue-finned mahseer is now the river's dominant mahseer and breeds there. Strictly it is not native to the Cauvery, since peer-reviewed work shows it was stocked from a Maharashtra hatchery from the 1970s–80s and the river's own mahseer is the hump-backed Tor remadevii; but no option offers '3 only', and with pair 2 clearly wrong, (c) is the only answer the options allow. In the exam, when one pair is contestable on fine taxonomy, let the options decide.

UPSC's key accepts pairs 1 and 3 and rejects pair 2. The blue-finned mahseer is the mahseer most often found in the Cauvery today, where it breeds in the wild; the Irrawaddy dolphin's Indian stronghold is Chilika Lagoon, not the Chambal; and the Rusty-spotted Cat does occur in the Eastern Ghats.

✓ 1. The blue-finned mahseer (Tor khudree, the Deccan mahseer) is now the common mahseer of the Cauvery: a self-sustaining wild population, which a 2015 study of the river's angler catches found to be recruiting strongly, after decades of stocking by Karnataka's fisheries department and angling bodies.
✗ 2. Chilika Lagoon on the east coast is the largest habitat of the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin in India. The Chambal is known for the gharial and the Ganges river dolphin, not this species.
✓ 3. The Rusty-spotted Cat lives in forests of peninsular India, including the Eastern Ghats; it has been recorded on camera in Papikonda National Park in the northern Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh.

Remember · Irrawaddy dolphin: Chilika Lagoon (Odisha). Rusty-spotted Cat: peninsular forests including the Eastern Ghats. Blue-finned mahseer: the common mahseer of the Cauvery today.

Sources

Chilika Development Authority (Government of Odisha): Chilika Lagoon ↗ · reference work “Hot spot of biodiversity with 228 species of Bird, 335 species of Fish and largest group of endangered Irrawaddy dolphin habitat”
Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(10), 2020: length-weight relationships of two mahseers (Tor) of the river Cauvery, Karnataka ↗ · reference work “these are the first available LW relationships for the Critically Endangered Tor remadevii and the non-native and locally invasive Tor khudree”
Journal of Threatened Taxa 8(5), 2016: camera-trap records of Rusty-spotted Cat from Papikonda National Park, northern Eastern Ghats ↗ · reference work “The present note reports the first camera trap records of the Leopard Cat Prionailurus benghalensis Kerr, 1792 and Rusty Spotted Cat, Prionailurus rubiginosus Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1831 from the Papikonda National Park, situated in the northern Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh.”
Pinder et al. (2018), PLoS ONE: taxonomy of the hump-backed mahseer, open-access copy on PubMed Central (NIH) ↗ “Currently known to be endemic and restricted to the River Cauvery basin in the Western Ghats, T . remadevii is distinguished from congener”
Pinder, Raghavan & Britton (2015), Endangered Species Research 28: the hump-backed mahseer of India's River Cauvery, open-access copy in the Bournemouth University repository ↗ · reference work “evidence suggests that the hump-backed phenotype is endemic to the river, whereas the blue-finned phenotype was introduced in the 1980s … with further documentation that stocking activity on the Cauvery included 30 000 mahseer by the Fish Farmers Development Agency, Mysore”

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2019, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

Prelims 2019 · Q68

Medium

Consider the following statements:

1.As per law, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority exists at both National and State levels.
2.People's participation is mandatory in the compensatory afforestation programmes carried out under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (a) 1 only

Only statement 1 is correct. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 sets up a National Authority (section 8) and a State Authority in each State (section 10), but it does not make people's participation mandatory in compensatory afforestation.

✓ 1. Section 8 constitutes the 'National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority', and section 10 constitutes a 'State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority' in each State.
✗ 2. The Act lays down the Authorities, their governing bodies and how the National and State Funds are managed and used. Nowhere does it make people's participation a compulsory part of compensatory afforestation.

Remember · The CAF Act, 2016 creates a National Authority and State Authorities to manage compensatory-afforestation money; it does not mandate people's participation.

Sources

The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 (official text, Forest Department, Government of Rajasthan), section 8, National Authority ↗ “there shall be constituted a National Authority to be called the “National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority” … there shall be constituted a State Authority to be called the “State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority” in each State.”

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2019, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

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Protected areas & conservation

Prelims 2019 · Q18

Prelims 2019 · Q22

Prelims 2019 · Q27

Prelims 2019 · Q29

Prelims 2019 · Q68

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