RAS question
Which two landscapes are central to the biodiversity-governance project launched on 26 April 2026?
Correct answer: (A) Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu and Garo Hills in Meghalaya.
The five-year biodiversity-governance project launched on 26 April 2026 is centred on the Sathyamangalam landscape in Tamil Nadu and the Garo Hills landscape in Meghalaya.
Explanation
The PIB release says the MoEFCC and the National Biodiversity Authority launched the five-year project to strengthen grassroots biodiversity governance through local institutions and greener Gram Panchayat Development Plans. Its landscape focus is not generic: the release states that the project is rooted in two ecologically significant landscapes. In Tamil Nadu, it identifies the Sathyamangalam landscape, including the Sathyamangalam and Mudumalai tiger-reserve context, where forest-fringe communities are linked to wildlife corridors. In Meghalaya, it identifies the Garo Hills landscape, with sites such as Nokrek, Balpakram and Siju, as the setting for community-led conservation through Village Employment Councils. That is why option A is the only pair named as the project’s landscape base.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) Sundarbans and Kaziranga are important ecosystems, but the PIB release does not name them as the landscapes for this project.
- (C) Aravalli and Chilika are not the two project landscapes mentioned in the release, which specifically names Sathyamangalam and Garo Hills.
- (D) The Ladakh plateau and Gulf of Mannar do not appear as the project’s landscape focus in the cited release.
Concept
This tests environment-governance in current affairs: how biodiversity conservation is being built into local planning institutions rather than treated only as protected-area management. Such questions recur in RAS because they connect ecology, decentralised governance and official government programmes.