How to study environmental organisations for Prelims?

Start studying the most familiar organizations and a handful of environmental legislations to ensure a safe coverage threshold. Beyond this, the reward ratio comes down and the facts get jumbled.

We covered International Conventions, organizations, and major environmental legislations yesterday for Prelims revision. The area is vast. However, it is a very rewarding area - more than 50 questions in 9 years! Therefore, one must be cautious to read selectively by avoiding unnecessary elaborate detailing in the textbooks.

From environmental legislations, the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 was UPSC's favorite. They have asked about Schedule 1 and Schedule 6 species, formalities to hunt an animal, and also about community reserve. All these questions were from the Wildlife Protection Act.

Apart from this, the Environmental Protection Act, CAMPA, National Green Tribunal, Forest Acts, Biodiversity Acts, and a few environmental regulations have been featured in UPSC questions. All these are major regulatory frameworks for environmental management. Surprisingly, UPSC is not fond of asking any special or specific schemes of conservation. Their focus is strictly on the major governance frameworks.

When it comes to International conventions and organizations, almost half of the questions are from familiar organizations or conventions. CITES convention, Agenda 21, Paris Agreement, Nagoya, Kyoto protocol, International Solar Alliance, Montreal Protocol, Green Climate Fund, and TRAFFIC are some of such popular global environmental legislations. At the same time, UPSC also asks about organizations which are not frequent in the regular study materials. Questions on Under2 Coalition, Invasive Species Specialist Group, The Partnership for Action on Green Economy, R2 code of Practices, and Momentum for Change are some of the examples.

Most often, UPSC goes beyond just identification of these organizations, even going slightly in-depth. The associated organizations, initiatives, origins, the purpose, and the character of the organization or treaty are asked as statements. This detailing makes this part slightly tough even for a well-studied aspirant.

You can start studying the most familiar organizations and a handful of environmental legislations to ensure a safe coverage threshold. Beyond this, the reward ratio comes down and the facts get jumbled. Therefore, we need to have a framework-based content-capturing approach that will make the study of random organizations effective. It means that one has to start preparing tables to organize scattered information about multiple organizations.

Another effective learning method to understand environmental organizations and legislations is to study with a historical sense. All environmental organizations or legislations have formed in tandem with the evolving environmental thought. Therefore, a good background understanding of the evolution of environmental thoughts and problems will help you to make good sense of these organizations/conventions.

The following article may partially guide you in this. It gives a framework within which you can trace the evolution of various global environment conventions. It will help you to understand the topics better: (https://aida-americas.org/en/blog/international-environmental-law-history-and-milestones)