Q.What is mass extinction? Will you encounter one such extinction in the near future? Enumerate the steps to be taken to prevent it.

Step 1. The chapter defines mass extinction as resulting from major environmental catastrophes, giving the example of the event roughly 225 million years ago in the Permian period, when 90% of shallow-water marine invertebrates disappeared; across Earth's 450-million-year history of life, there have been five such mass extinctions, each eliminating at least 50% of the flora and fauna species present.

Step 2. On whether we will encounter one in the near future, the chapter's own framing is a warning rather than a reassurance: it quotes the World Wildlife Fund's statement that the world is currently undergoing biodiversity loss 'comparable with the great mass extinction events' of the past, and separately states the current extinction rate is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the natural background rate and still expected to grow — so, on the chapter's own evidence, a human-driven mass extinction is a real and rising risk, not a purely historical concern.

Step 3. Steps to prevent it follow directly from the chapter's own conservation strategies: identify and protect all threatened species and their critical habitats; expand and properly enforce Protected Areas (national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, biosphere reserves) and biodiversity hotspot protection through in-situ conservation; use ex-situ measures (zoos, gene banks, captive breeding) to safeguard species whose wild populations are already critically small; control pollution, curb over-exploitation and regulate the introduction of exotic species; and implement legal frameworks such as India's Wildlife Protection Act and Biological Diversity Act, alongside international agreements like CITES and the CBD. …

Define mass extinction from the chapter's five-events framing, assess near-future risk using the chapter's own 100-1000x extinction-rate statistic and WWF quote, then list …

• Answering 'no' to the near-future risk question without engaging with the chapter's own WWF quote and elevated extinction-rate statistic. …