Loading…
The 4th Indo-German Environment Forum was held in New Delhi on 1 September 2026 on the theme 'Together For More Resilience'.
It was co-chaired by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and German Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider, with about 200 participants.
India and Germany signed a Joint Declaration of Intent on the conservation and wise use of wetlands of international importance.
The Forum is the highest-level bilateral format between the two countries on environmental policy and has been held regularly since 2008.
Three bilateral working groups, on climate change, biodiversity and the circular economy, met ahead of the Forum to review progress.
The Ramsar Convention, adopted at Ramsar in Iran in 1971, does not ask countries to fence wetlands off. It asks them to maintain the ecological character of a wetland while continuing to use it, through an ecosystem approach and within the context of sustainable development. That is what 'wise use' means in the Convention's own language, and it is why a bilateral declaration on 'conservation and wise use of wetlands of international importance' is really a declaration about Ramsar sites and the management standard applied to them. The phrase matters in the exam hall because questions often test whether a candidate reads it as ordinary English or as the Convention's term of art.
Simple Analogy: It is the difference between locking a heritage building and keeping it in use while preserving what makes it heritage.
Germany sits in central Europe with nine land neighbours: Denmark to the north; Poland and the Czech Republic to the east; Austria and Switzerland to the south; and France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west. It has coastlines on the North Sea in the north-west and the Baltic Sea in the north-east. The Rhine, the Elbe and the Danube are its principal rivers, and Lake Constance, its largest freshwater lake, lies on the tri-junction with Austria and Switzerland. The Alps and the Bavarian highlands form its southern relief, and it has significant lignite, coal, potash and metallic mineral resources.
GS Paper 2 > Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India; GS Paper 3 > Conservation
General Awareness > Current Affairs and World Geography
In the context of which one of the following are the terms 'pyrolysis and plasma gasification' mentioned?
Answer: Waste-to-energy technologies
Consider the following statements: Statement I: Circular economy reduces the emissions of greenhouse gases. Statement II: Circular economy reduces the use of raw materials as inputs. Statement III: Circular economy reduces wastage in the production process. Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements?
Answer: Both Statement II and Statement III are correct and both of them explain Statement I
A written statement of intended cooperation between governments; it records political commitment but does not create binding legal obligations the way a treaty does
The Ramsar Convention's core principle of maintaining a wetland's ecological character while continuing to use it, through an ecosystem approach within sustainable development
An economic model that designs out waste by keeping materials in use through reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling, one of the three IGEF working-group themes