Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Hampi, Khajuraho on list for G20 culture track.

• As part of India’s G20 Presidency between December 2022 and November 2023, the Government is planning to host five key meetings focusing on the “culture track” at Khajuraho, Bhubaneswar, Hampi and Agra.
• These cities have been chosen mainly for well-known monuments and UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as Taj Mahal and Agra Fort (UP), the Hindu and Jain temples of Khajuraho (Madhya Pradesh), the Konark Sun Temple around 65 km from Bhubaneswar (Odisha), and the sites at Hampi (Karnataka). 
• For the culture track, a G20 Secretariat has been set up in the Ministry of Culture, which will hire a professional agency “for research, documentation and coordination work for the G20 work-stream of culture.

G20 presidency also provides a fantastic opportunity for India to shape the global agenda on culture across multiple work streams and engagement areas. These include:

• Protection and restitution of cultural property
• Advancement of traditional cultural practices for sustainable living
• Promotion of cultural and creative industries for livelihood generation
• Preservation and dissemination of culture by leveraging technology.

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that was outlined in a constitution signed November 16, 1945. It promotes international collaboration in education, science, and culture to promote peace. 

UNESCO World Heritage Site

• A World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by UNESCO for its special cultural or physical significance.
• The list of World Heritage Sites is maintained by the international ‘World Heritage Programme’, administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.
• There are 40 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India.
• Dholavira and Ramappa Temple are the latest addition to the list under the ‘Cultural’ category. There are two more categories Natural and Mixed.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Prime Minister dedicated 75 digital banking units to the nation, taking forward an announcement that was made in the 2022-23 Union Budget.

What are these DBUs?

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the guidelines for DBUs, following the report of a working group of the Indian Banks Association (IBA). 
• A digital banking unit is a specialised fixed point business unit or hub, housing a certain minimum digital infrastructure for delivering digital banking products and services as well as servicing existing financial products and services digitally in self-service mode at any time.

Who will set up these DBUs?

• Commercial banks (other than regional rural banks, payment banks and local area banks) with past digital banking experience are permitted to open DBUs in tier 1 to tier 6 centres, unless otherwise specifically restricted, without having the need to take permission from the RBI in each case.

What services will be provided by these units?

• As per the RBI, each DBU must offer certain minimum digital banking products and services. 
• Such products should be on both liabilities and assets side of the balance sheet of the digital banking segment. 
• Digitally value-added services to conventional products would also qualify as such.
• The services include saving bank accounts under various schemes, current accounts, fixed deposit and recurring deposit accounts, digital kits for customers, mobile banking, Internet banking, debit cards, credit cards, and mass transit system cards, digital kits for merchants, UPI QR codes, BHIM Aadhaar and point of sale (PoS).
• Other services include making applications for and onboarding customers for identified retail, MSME or schematic loans. 
• This may also include end-to-end digital processing of such loans, starting from online application to disbursal and identified government-sponsored schemes that are covered under the national portal.

Neobanks

• Currently, fintechs operating as neobanks offer digital banking services but they do so in partnership with non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). 
• Some of the neobanks offering services in India are Jupiter, Fi Money, Niyo, Razorpay X.
• Compared to conventional banks with online and mobile banking facilities, neobanks or digital banks excel at product innovation and offer far better digital solutions. 
• However, given the arrangement they have currently with NBFCs or scheduled banks to conduct the actual banking part, some in the industry have pegged these digital banks as “glorified digital distribution companies”.

Significance of DBUs

• Further financial inclusion
• Significantly improve banking experience for the citizens

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Last week, meat and seafood retailer Licious forayed into the marketing of “mock” chicken and mutton under a new UnCrave brand.

Plant Based Meat

• Plant-based” refers to products that bio-mimic or replicate meat, seafood, eggs, and milk derived from animals — by looking, smelling, and tasting like them.
• The variety like mutton samosas and also chicken nuggets, momos, and fries with the same prefix. 
• Beyond Meat’s patties, apart from using coconut oil to copy the melty beef fat of a real hamburger, apparently even bleed as they cook the “blood” coming from a beetroot juice-based liquid.
• Plant-based dairy products include ice-cream that isn’t simply frozen dessert that replaces milk fat with vegetable oil. 
• Even the proteins and other solids-not-fat ingredients are sourced from plants.

How are these made?

• Animal meat contains protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, and water, just like plants. 
• This biochemical similarity allows for finding analogues in the plant kingdom or making them through mechanical, chemical, or biological treatment of such ingredients.
• The challenge lies in replicating muscle tissue that plants don’t have.
• The unique spatial arrangement of proteins in these tissues is what creates the distinct texture of animal meat. 
• That’s why plant-based mutton samosas, kebabs or keema, having a simpler texture, are easier to make than larger whole cuts of animal meat such as chicken breasts and pork chops.
• As for plant-based dairy, the main products are milk from oats, almond, soyabean, coconut, and rice. 
• Among these, oat milk is considered the closest to regular milk in taste and texture. It is also thicker and creamier, as oats absorb more water than nuts or rice during soaking, and more of the grain gets strained for incorporation into the final product. 

How big is the industry?

• According to the Good Foods Institute at Washington DC, retail sales of plant-based animal product alternatives in the US stood at $7.4 billion in 2021. 
• While the industry has grown from $4.8 billion in 2018, it hasn’t lived up to the initial hype. 

What is the scope in India?

• Due to India’s significant vegetarian population, plant-based meat does not see much potential in India.
• Plant-based meat can have only a niche market relevant for the top 1%.”
• Most Indians take naturally to milk, which is a classic “superior food”.
• Both milk (which includes ghee, curd, butter, ice-cream and other dairy products) and, to a lesser extent, meat (which includes fish and prawn) are superior foods — unlike cereals and sugar, whose share in the value of consumption reduces with increasing incomes, making them “inferior foods”.
• Digestive concerns like lactose intolerance aren’t very serious in India and, at any rate, pale in comparison to the perception of milk as a wholesome food.
• “Plant-based beverages cannot compete with real milk either on nutrition, taste, or affordability.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Scientists have detected barium in the upper atmosphere of two giant exoplanets for the first time. 

About Exoplanet

• These exoplanets are two ultra-hot Jupiters WASP-76b and WASP-121b which orbit their host stars WASP 76 and WASP 121.
• The former is about 640 light-years away from the Earth and the latter around 900 light-years away.
• Ultra-hot Jupiters are a class of hot gaseous planets that matches the size of Jupiter. But they have short orbital periods, unlike Jupiter.
• Both WASP-76b and WASP-121b complete one orbit in two days. Surface temperatures in these bodies reach as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius. 
• These bodies have unique features owing to their high temperatures. For instance, WASP-76b experiences iron rain.

Findings

The scientists confirmed the presence of hydrogen, lithium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, vanadium, chromium, manganese and iron in the atmosphere of the WASP-76 b, in addition to barium.

• Additionally, the team found elements such as cobalt and strontium. They also found indications of titanium in the exoplanet.
• The presence of heavy elements at high altitudes in the atmospheres of ultra-hot Jupiters indicates that some unique atmospheric dynamics are at play.
• This discovery of barium is surprising because heavy elements like barium are expected to quickly fall into the lower layers of the atmosphere.

Barium

• Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56.
• The element is used in metallurgy, and its compounds are used in pyrotechnics, petroleum production, and radiology.
• Soluble barium compounds are poisonous. In low doses, barium ions act as a muscle stimulant, and higher doses affect the nervous system, causing cardiac irregularities, tremors, weakness, anxiety, shortness of breath, and paralysis.
• Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element.
• Barium salts are used in fireworks to generate green lights.
• Barium, two and half times heavier than iron, is the heaviest-ever detected element.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The US Food and Drug and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a shortage of Adderall, medication used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). There is not sufficient supply to continue to meet US market demand.

Adderall and its treatment for ADHD

• Adderall is the brand name for the formulation that consists of a combination of dextroamphetamine and amphetamine. 
• It is an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of ADHD and narcolepsy, a sleep condition that causes daytime sleepiness.
• The CDC states that symptoms can appear different at older ages, for example, hyperactivity can appear as extreme restlessness.
• Adderall belongs to the class of drugs known as stimulants and increases the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain.
• For people diagnosed with ADHD, Adderall can help improve focus, concentration, impulse control and hyperactivity, because of its effects on the central nervous system.
• It can also have the same effects on those who do not have ADHD.
• Adderall is classified as a Schedule II drug in the US, which means that while it has positive medicinal effects, there is a large potential for abuse.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

• ADHD is one the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood, usually diagnosed at an early age and lasting into adulthood. 
• According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), children with ADHD might have trouble paying attention or controlling impulsive behaviours, and can be overly active.
• Many adults remain undiagnosed, and symptoms can cause difficulty at work, home or relationships. 
• There are three different types of ADHD:

• Predominantly Inattentive Presentation
• Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation
• Combined Presentation

• The causes and risk factors for ADHD are unknown, but current research shows that genetics plays an important role.
• Other possible causes may include brain injury, exposure to environmental risks (e.g., lead) during pregnancy or at a young age, alcohol and tobacco use during pregnancy, premature delivery, low birth weight, etc.

Amphetamines have been extensively abused. Tolerance, extreme psychological dependence, and severe social disability have occurred.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Union Environment Ministry announced a ₹50 crore scheme to incentivise industrialists and entrepreneurs to set up paddy straw pelletisation and torrefaction plants.

Stubble Burning

• Stubble burning refers to the practice of farmers setting fire to plant debris that remain in farms after harvest.
• Stubble burning is practised predominantly by farmers in north India.
• It is to be noted that, before the 1980s, farmers used to till the remaining debris back into the soil after harvesting the crops manually.
• Paddy stubble burning is practised mainly in the Indo-Gangetic plains of Punjab, Haryana, and UP.
• The problem is that about 75% or 20 million tonne is from non-basmati rice, which cannot be fed to cattle as fodder because of its high silica content.

About the scheme

• Paddy straw made into pellets or torrefied can be mixed along with coal in thermal power plants. 
• This saves coal as well as reduces carbon emissions that would otherwise have been emitted were the straw burnt in the fields, as is the regular practice of most farmers in Punjab and Haryana.
• New units set up would be eligible for government funding in the form of capital to set up such plants. 
• The estimated cost of setting up a regular pelletisation plant, which can process a tonne per hour, is ₹35 lakh. 
• Under the scheme, the Centre will fund such plants to a maximum of ₹70 lakh subject to capacity.
• Similarly, the cost of establishing a torrefaction plant is ₹70 lakh and under the scheme, is eligible for a maximum funding of ₹1.4 crore.
• Torrefaction is costlier but can deliver a product whose energy content is much higher and theoretically substitute for more coal in a power plant.
• This would be a “one-time only” scheme and regular pellet plants would be eligible for ₹40 crore of the overall pie.

Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)

• The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) is a statutory organization, constituted in 1974 under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. 
• It is the apex organization in the country in the field of pollution control as a technical wing of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFC).
• It is also entrusted with the powers and functions under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution Act 1981)
• It also serves as a field formation and also provides technical services to the Ministry of Environment and Forests under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
• The functions of CPCB includes promote cleanliness of streams and wells in different States by prevention, control and abatement of water pollution and to improve the quality of air and to prevent, control or abate air pollution in the country.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

 NASA scientists have succeeded in slightly altering the trajectory of an asteroid by using a spacecraft to slam into it.

• DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) was aimed at a 160-metre-wide asteroid Dimorphos, which was orbiting a larger asteroid Didymos, both of which were circling the sun, 11.2 million kilometres from the earth. 
• Since neither body would have come closer than about 6.4 million km of the earth in their lifetime, they did not pose any threat.
• However, DART was a test mission to see if this technique, known as kinetic impactor, would give the necessary ‘nudge’ to an asteroid and alter its course by a desired amount. 
• After studying the two bodies for nearly 10 days, NASA announced that the course of the smaller asteroid has indeed been altered a little.
• Initially, the orbit of Dimorphos around Didymos took 11 hours and 55 minutes. 
• After the impact, a 32-minute alteration in its orbital period has taken place — it is now 11 hours and 23 minutes only. 
• The reason for this test is to learn how to use the kinetic impactor technique to ‘nudge’ earth-bound asteroids out of the way, years before impact. 
• This is not a last-minute effort. A word of caution: all asteroids are not similar, so more tests have to be done to perfect this technique.

Utility

There is a need to develop this technique because an impact with even a small asteroid can have serious consequences. 

• The Chicxulub crater is a reminder of the impact of a 10 km wide large asteroid that fell on the earth 66 million years ago and wiped out nearly 75% of plant and animal life. 
• An impact with an asteroid even about 100 m wide can destroy a city the size of Chennai. 
• The other question is whether this technique can be used to deflect asteroids bearing rich bounties of minerals and moving them to closer locations from where these can be harvested. No country has made this an explicit aim till now.
• The U.S. is not alone in attempting this. 
• China has a plan to deflect a 40 m wide, earth-crossing asteroid named 2020PN1 by 2026. 

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

India ranks 107 out of 121 countries on the Global Hunger Index in which it fares worse than all countries in South Asia barring war-torn Afghanistan.

• The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels. 
• GHI scores are based on the values of four component indicators – undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality.
• The GHI score is calculated on a 100-point scale reflecting the severity of hunger, where zero is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.

Global Hunger Index

• The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels.
• Annual Report: Jointly published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.
• It was first produced in 2006. It is published every October. The 2022 edition marks the 17th edition of the GHI.
• It’s aim to comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and country levels.

Indicators: The four indicators for the index are:

• Undernourishment (share of the population with insufficient caloric intake),
• Child Wasting (low weight for height, reflecting acute undernutrition) 
• Child Stunting (low height for age, reflecting chronic undernutrition) and
• Child Mortality rate under 5 years of age.

India’s Scenario

• India ranks 107 out of 121 countries on the Global Hunger Index in which it fares worse than all countries in South Asia barring war-torn Afghanistan.
• India’s score of 29.1 places it in the ‘serious’ category. India also ranks below Sri Lanka (64), Nepal (81), Bangladesh (84), and Pakistan (99).
• Afghanistan (109) is the only country in South Asia that performs worse than India on the index.
• India’s score of 29.1 places it in the ‘serious’ category.
• India’s child wasting rate (low weight for height), at 19.3%, is worse than the levels recorded in 2014 (15.1%) and even 2000 (17.15). This is the highest for any country in the world and drives up the region’s average owing to India’s large population.
• Prevalence of undernourishment has also risen in the country from 14.6% in 2018-2020 to 16.3% in 2019-2021. This translates into 224.3 million people in India considered undernourished.
• Child stunting and child mortality: India has shown improvement in child stunting, which has declined from 38.7% to 35.5% between 2014 and 2022. Similarly, child mortality has also dropped from 4.6% to 3.3% in the same comparative period.
• Overall, India has shown a slight worsening with its GHI score increasing from 28.2 in 2014 to 29.1 in 2022.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The Union Cabinet has approved the Prime Minister’s Development Initiative for North East Region (PM-DevINE) – a new scheme for the Northeastern states.

• The scheme will be operational for the remaining four years of the 15th Finance Commission, from 2022-23 to 2025-26, and will have an outlay of Rs 6,600 crore.

What is PM-DevINE?

• The new scheme, PM-DevINE, is a Central Sector Scheme with 100% Central funding and will be implemented by Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) through North Eastern Council or Central Ministries/ agencies.
• The PM-DevINE Scheme will have an outlay of Rs.6,600 crore for the four year period from 2022-23 to 2025-26 (remaining years of 15th Finance Commission period).
• PM-DevINE will lead to creation of infrastructure, support industries, social development projects and create livelihood activities for youth and women, thus leading to employment generation.
• Measures would be taken to ensure adequate operation and maintenance of the projects sanctioned under PM-DevINE so that they are sustainable.
• To limit construction risks of time and cost overrun, falling on the Government projects would be implemented on Engineering-procurement-Construction (EPC) basis, to the extent possible.
• Efforts will be made to complete the PM-DevINE projects by 2025-26 so that there are no committed liabilities beyond this year, said DoNER officials.

Objectives of PM-DevINE

• Fund infrastructure convergently, in the spirit of PM Gati Shakti;
• Support social development projects based on felt needs of the NER;
• Enable livelihood activities for youth and women;
• Fill the development gaps in various sectors.

MDoNER

• The Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MD0NER) is responsible for the matters relating to the planning, execution and monitoring of development schemes and projects in the North Eastern Region. 
• Its vision is to accelerate the pace of socio-economic development of the Region so that it may enjoy growth parity with the rest of the country.

Initiatives/activities of MDoNER:

• NESIDS: North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme” (NESIDS) was approved by the Government of India as a Central Sector Scheme. 
• NLCPR: The Non Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) Scheme came into existence in 1998 under then Planning Commission. Subsequently, it was transferred to DoNER in 2001. 

• The objective of NLCPR Scheme is to fill up the gap in infrastructure sector of the North Eastern Region through sanctioning the projects prioritised by the State Governments. 

• SIDF: Social and Infrastructure Development Fund (SIDF). It is a one-time package that covers projects, prioritized by the State Governments as per their requirement, which, inter alia, include construction of new roads and bridges, re-establishment of new sub-stations/transmission lines, construction/upgradation of hospitals, establishment of schools, water supply projects etc.
• NITI Forum for North East: In collaboration with the NITI Aayog, the ‘NITI Forum for North East’ constituted for accelerated, inclusive and sustainable development in the North East Region has identified 5 focus sectors, viz. Tea, Tourism, Bamboo, Dairy and Pisciculture.
• Mission Organic Value Chain Development (MOVCD-NER): The program has been implemented in the North-Eastern states since 2017. The aim of the mission is to promote organic farming in the region. It seeks to replace traditional subsistence farming with a cluster-based approach.
• Sub Mission on Seeds and Planting Material (SMSP): It aims to increase the availability of seeds of the High Yielding Varieties of crops. The overall objective is to double farmers’ income by 2022, as envisioned by the Government. The scheme is run alongside other support programs like Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), integrated farming systems etc.
• Connectivity Projects: To create alternate routes to the region and decrease its dependence on the Chicken’s Neck, the Indian government has planned additional routes through South East Asia like Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Project, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Corridor, etc.

• India’s Look-East connectivity projects connect Northeast India to East Asia and ASEAN.

• NEHHDC: Home Minister recently launched the North Eastern Handicrafts & Handlooms Development Corporation Limited (NEHHDC) Mobile Application during the session.
• The NEHHDC would help register artisans and weavers online and collect authentic data through the app. It is expected to provide training through specially designed online courses and help the beneficiaries and redress grievances.
• NESAC: North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC) was established as a joint initiative of Department of Space (DOS) and the North Eastern Council (NEC) and came into being on 5th of September, 2000.

• The Centre helps in augmenting the developmental process in the region by providing the advanced space technology support.

External aided projects for NER:

• North Eastern States Roads Investment Programme (NESRIP) assisted by Asian Development Bank (ADB):
• The scheme envisaged construction/up-gradation of total 433.425 km long roads in 6 North Eastern States of Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura.

Challenges to the Development of the NER:

Difficult Terrain

North Eastern Region is majorly a mountainous region, except the state of Assam, which has plains as a major part of its area.

This makes it difficult for the government schemes to be implemented in the area, because of the problem of access to the remote areas.

Backward Areas

Unlike the mainland, people of the North East Region are still content with a simple lifestyle and lack of technology in their day-to-day lives. The standard of living continues to be low, due to the absence of high-income generation opportunities.

For e.g., the farmers practice primitive methods of agriculture, with the tribals still practising Shifting agriculture in the country.

Connectivity

As stated above, the North Eastern Region is a landlocked region. Therefore, it has limited access to the sea. Similarly, it has a difficult terrain that renders expressways and wider roads infeasible.

This is complicated by the absence of railway infrastructure in the region.

Insurgencies

One of the major regions for the lack of development in the region is the lack of political and social stability in the country.

The artificial boundaries of the British legacy have not been fully accepted by the tribal communities of the region, which is compounded by political opportunism.

The region is still caught in the vicious circle of violence due to political reasons and the diversion of youth towards the insurgent groups, which leads to a lack of skill enhancement and consequent lack of opportunity.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Wildlife officials in Arunachal Pradesh are awaiting analysis of the data of a survey conducted in 2021 to ascertain the presence of the elusive snow leopard.

The data was collected from a high-altitude Himalayan belt across 11 wildlife divisions from Tawang in the west and Anini to the east and was sent to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

• Namdapha is the known home of three other large cats — tiger, leopard and clouded leopard. 
• The belief that the national park is also the habitat of the snow leopard is based on the claim of a hunter from the Lisu ethnic community that he possessed the skin of the carnivore.

• The snow leopard has never been spotted nor recorded in the Namdapha National Park and Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district. 
• The 1,985 sq. km reserve bordering Myanmar has an elevation varying from 200 metres to 4,571 metres above sea level

Snow Leopard

• Snow leopards have a vast but fragmented distribution across the mountainous landscape of Central Asia, which covers different parts of the Himalayas such as Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Sikkim.
• It is the State animal of Himachal Pradesh.
• The Snow Leopard (also known as Ghost of the mountains) acts as an indicator of the health of the mountain ecosystem in which they live. It is because of their position as the top predator in the food web.
• Further, it is found in 12 range countries namely Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Conservation efforts

• IUCN status: Vulnerable
• Listed in CITES Appendix I
• Listed as threatened with extinction in Schedule I of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) of Wild Animals since 1985.
• Listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
• Flagship conservation species of India – part of 21 critically endangered species for the recovery program under MoEF&CC
• India is a party to the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection (GSLEP) Programme since 2013.
• SECURE Himalayas initiative of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
• Project Snow Leopard 2009.

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)

• Established as a Charitable Trust on 27 November, 1969, WWF India set out with the aim of reducing the degradation of Earth’s natural environment and building a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. In 1987, the organization changed it’s name from the World Wildlife Fund to World Wide Fund for Nature India. 
• With five decades of extensive work in the sector, WWF India today is one of the leading conservation organizations in the country.
• WWF India is a science-based organization which addresses issues such as the conservation of species and its habitats, climate change, water and environmental education, among many others.
• Their work is focused around six ambitious goals: Climate, Food, Forests, Freshwater, Oceans, Wildlife.

Its initiatives include

• Debt-for-Nature Swap
• Earth Hour
• Healthy Grown
• Marine Stewardship Council
• Living Planet Index