Wildlife Institute of India(WII) to conduct a study on Olive Ridley turtles and their movement.

 

♦ The species of Olive ridley turtles are the most abundant of all sea turtles found in the earth.

♦ Their habitats are warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic & Indian oceans.

♦ Olive Ridley turtles spend their entire lives in the ocean & migrate thousands of kilometres between feeding & mating grounds in a year. 

♦ CITES Appendix I banned international trade of these turtles and their products but the turtles are still extensively poached for their meat, leather and eggs and their shell, though iillegal to harvest, it has a significantly major market around the coastal regions. 

♦ The severe threat for turtles is the accidental killing of adult turtles by entanglement in trawl nets & gill nets due to uncontrolled fishing during their mating season around nesting beaches.

♦ In the view of decreasing the accidental killing in the country, the Odisha state government has made it mandatory for trawls to use TEDTurtle Excluder Devices (TEDs).

♦ Rushikulya rookery coast in the Ganjam district of Odisha, Gahirmatha beach (Bhitarkanika National park) and the mouth of the Debi River are the major nesting sites in Odisha.

IUCN status: Vulnerable

Six new sites (except the Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary) under Project Lion announced by PM Narendra Modi on Independence day were  (August 15, 2020).

 

♦ The six new sites included are:

♦ Madhav National Park, Madhya Pradesh.

♦ Sita Mata Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan.

♦ Mukunda Hills Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan.

♦ Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Madhya Pradesh. 

♦ Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan.

♦ Jessore-Balaram Ambaji Wildlife Sanctuary, Gujarat.

♦ Lion relocation has been discussed since 1995, when the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary was identified as an alternate site. 

♦ The population of Lions in Gir has low genetic diversity, making it vulnerable to threats of extension from epidemics.

♦ Lions are found in Gujarat across 30,000 sq km called the Asiatic Lion Landscape (ALL).

♦ The 2013 Supreme Court order directed Gujarat to relocate lions to the Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary.

 

These Lions are Listed as ‘Endangered’ under the IUCN Red List. Asiatic Lion’s population is restricted to the state of Gujarat in India (Gir National Park).

♦ Some 189 countries remain committed to the 2015 Paris accord.

♦ Paris Agreement is a historic international accord that brings almost 200 countries together in setting a common target to reduce global greenhouse emissions to fight climate change.

♦ The pact seeks to keep global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, and to try and limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

♦ To this end, each country has pledged to implement targeted action plans that will limit their greenhouse gas emissions.

♦ The Agreement asks rich and developed countries to provide financial and technological support to the developing world in its quest to fight and adapt to climate change.