GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

The most recent Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2019) estimates around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction.

• Community based conservation must be promoted, although authorities consider them as a threat.
• May 22 is celebrated as ‘International Biodiversity Day’.

• Community-based conservationis a conservation movement that emerged in the 1980s, in response to escalating protests and subsequent dialogue with local communities affected by international attempts to protect the biodiversity of the earth.
• These contentions were a reaction against traditional 'top down' conservation practices, whereby governments or large organisations exert control at a local level, which were perceived as disregarding the interests of local inhabitants. 
• This conservation strategy was used widely until the 1970s when indigenous people started to fight for their rights and land.
• In 1975 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Parks Congress recognized the rights of indigenous people and to recognize their rights of the protected areas.

Present scenario

• India assigned terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, and marine environments adding up to around 17 per cent of its geographical area for conservation, and committed to the global 30×30 initiative which aims to protect 30 per cent of the planet by the year 2030.
• Concerns have been raised worldwide about the 30×30 initiative, criticising the focus on protected areas that will likely result in the eviction of vulnerable people, including tribals, and local communities, and lead to the loss of access to natural resources.
• The creation of protected areas has long been perceived as ‘fortress conservation’, in which local peoples are perceived as a threat and excluded or have limited access.
• Hence, the practice often results in negative perceptions of conservation efforts that limit their success as well as reduce human well-being. 

About

Community-based conservation

• The objective of community-based conservation is to actively involve and give some control to members of local communities in conservation efforts which may affect them, and incorporate improvement to the lives of local people while conserving areas through the creation of national parks or wildlife refuges.
• Strategy: One strategy of community-based conservation is co-management or joint management of a protected area.
• Co-management combines local peoples’ traditional knowledge of the environment with modern scientific knowledge of scientists.
• This combination of knowledge can lead to increased biodiversity and better management of the protected area.

Advantages

• It is known to be more successful method as it involves a larger number of stakeholders.
• The approach ensures the sustainable use of biodiversity, sustainable livelihoods for the local community as well as access to natural resources.
• Locals are open to the practice, so CBC can be used to mitigate the alarming rate of environmental destruction and depreciation that is occurring as the result of anthropogenic activities including excessive tourism, massive resource exploitation, increased urbanisation, and ineffective environmental policies.

The snake has been named Maya’s Pit Viper after the deceased mother of an Army officer.

• The name of the pit viper, recognised as Trimeresurus mayaae, is also believed to allude to maya, meaning the supernatural powers, or the illusion related to local legends.

• Pit viper, is the species of viper (subfamily Crotalinae) that has, in addition to two movable fangs, a heat-sensitive pit organ between each eye and nostril which together help it accurately aim its strike at its warm-blooded prey.
• Pit vipers are found from deserts to rainforests, primarily in the New World.
• They can be terrestrial, arboreal, or aquatic.
• Some species lay eggs and others produce live young ones.
• The snake measuring about 750 mm in length.
  

Why it is important?

• In a country where around 1.2 million people have lost their lives owing to snakebite and many more have lost their limbs in the last two decades.
• A discovery of a new venomous snake means a lot in the context of public health.
• Venom is a complex protein, mostly typical to a species and thus unravelling a new species will help understanding its venom and its impact on human life and perhaps will help save lives.

Snake bites in India

• The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 5 million snakebites occur each year, resulting in up to 2.7 million envenoming.
• Published reports suggest that between 81,000 and 138,000 deaths occur each year.
• Snakebite envenoming causes as many as 400,000 amputations and other permanent disabilities.
• Many snakebites go unreported, often because victims seek treatment from non-medical sources or do not have access to health care.
• As a result it is believed that many cases of snakebite go unreported.
• Snake antivenoms are effective treatments to prevent or reverse most of the harmful effects of snakebite envenoming.
• They are included in the WHO Essential Medicines List and should be part of any primary health-care package where snake bites occur.
• Unfortunately many people either lack access to antivenom, or cannot afford to pay for them.
• Many families sell possessions or go into debt in order to obtain antivenom after someone is bitten.
• WHO added snakebite envenoming to its priority list of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in June 2017.

• Researchers have developed a low-cost device that can selectively capture carbon dioxide gas while it charges.
  • Then, when it discharges, the carbon dioxide can be released in a controlled way and collected to be reused or disposed of responsibly.

About the Device

• The supercapacitor device is of the size of a coin, and is made in part from sustainable materials including coconut shells and seawater.
• The supercapacitor consists of two electrodes of positive and negative charge.
• An alternating the current between the plates from a negative to a positive voltage will help to capture CO2 and extend the charging time.
• This improved the supercapacitor’s ability to capture carbon.
• The supercapacitor, works like a rechargeable battery could help power carbon capture and storage technologies at much lower cost.
• The most advanced carbon capture technologies currently require large amounts of energy and are expensive.
• Need- around 35 billion tonnes of CO2 are released into the atmosphere per year and solutions are urgently needed to eliminate these emissions and address the climate crisis. The most advanced carbon capture technologies currently require large amounts of energy and are expensive.

How supercapacitor device will help?

• The Supercapacitors can’t store as much charge as batteries, but for something like carbon capture we would prioritise durability.
• The best part is that the materials used to make supercapacitors are cheap and abundant.
• The electrodes are made of carbon, which comes from waste coconut shells.
• The materials used that are inert, that don’t harm environments, and that we need to dispose of less frequently.
• For example, the CO2 dissolves into a water-based electrolyte which is basically seawater.
• The supercapacitor both captures carbon and stores energy.
• The project has been contributed by developing a gas analysis technique for the device.
• The technique uses a pressure sensor that responds to changes in gas adsorption in the electrochemical device.
• It will help to narrow down the precise mechanism at play inside the supercapacitor when CO2 is absorbed and released.
• Understanding these mechanisms, the possible losses, and the routes of degradation are all essential before the supercapacitor can be scaled up.

India may seek a permanent solution to the issue of public stockholding for food security during the 12th World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference starting on 12 June in Geneva.

• India had informed WTO that the value of its rice production in 2019-20 stood at $46.07 billion and that subsidies worth $6.31 billion, or 13.7%, were given, above the 10% limit.
• Developing nations such as China and African nation part of the G33 group have also raised this issue at WTO.
• WTO rules do not allow export of commodity from public stock because it distorts prices, which affects other countries.
• However, the same is allowed if exports are done at market prices.
• Other countries argue that you (India) give subsidy on the production as well as at the distribution end.

India’s stand

• According to current WTO rules, a member country’s food subsidy bill should not breach 10% of the value of production based on the base price of 1986-88.
• Although India is seeking amendments in the formula to calculate the food subsidy limit.
• India is also seeking to add government programmes that were started after 2013 in the peace clause agreed in the Bali ministerial meeting.
• Under this clause, WTO members agreed to refrain from challenging any breach of the prescribed ceiling of 10% by a developing nation.
• The developing countries cannot be taken to arbitration as they are protected under the peace clause.
• However, the clause is applicable till a permanent solution is reached.
• Currently, the peace clause only includes the government programmes started before 2013.
• India wants government programmes started after 2013 to be included in the calculation.

The Supreme Court had held that, both Parliament and State have concurrent powers to legislate on GST and in the nature of a simultaneous power.

About the Issue

• It was a revenue appeal against the decision of the Gujarat High Court which held that the levy of IGST on ocean freight under reverse charge mechanism on the importer as unconstitutional.
• The Supreme Court in its recent landmark decision in the Case of Mohit Minerals, has upheld the decision of the Gujarat High Court.
• While doing so, the Court had also analysed the scope and ambit of Article 246A and 279A which is likely to have a far-reaching effect as an interpretation of the plain language in Article 246A and 279A now stands endorsed by the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court’s interpretation

• The Supreme Court has held that;
• Both Parliament and State have concurrent powers to legislate on GST and in the nature of a simultaneous power.
• The constitutional role and functions of the GST Council must be understood in the context of simultaneous legislative power conferred on Parliament and the State legislatures.
• Since India has a multi-party system, it is possible that the party in power at the Centre may or may not be in power in various States.

Therefore, the GST Council is not only an avenue for the exercise of cooperative federalism.

• The recommendations of the GST Council cannot be binding. The argument that if the recommendations of the GST Council are not binding, then the entire structure of GST would crumble, does not hold water.
• The use of the phrase ‘recommendations to the Union or States’ indicates that the GST Council is a recommendatory body, aiding the Government in enacting legislation on GST.

Benefits for states

• While this position of law was well understood, the decision of the Supreme Court will go a long way in shaping the way the GST Council functions in the future.
• States would be reinvigorated by this decision since revenue compulsions are different for each state.
• It will be easy for the GST Council to take decisions against the issue of compensation; loss of revenue on account of the pandemic; divergent views on new levies or cess.