Project Tiger is not the great success story that the government would have you believe. India has lost 32 tigers in the last four months with two tigers having being killed last month in Tadoba Tiger Reserve by poachers using iron foot-traps.

Fourteen of these tigers have been lost to poachers till May 2012, minister for environment and forests Jayanthi Natarajan told reporters on the sidelines of the first stocktaking meeting to review the implementation of the Global Tiger Recovery Programme. “The remaining 18 tigers died natural deaths and we are constantly looking into reasons for this,” the minister said.

Government today dismissed reports that Brahmaputra river in Arunachal Pradesh has dried up and said that its average monthly flow has been better than the previous years.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Water Resources Vincent H Pala said, “There is no evidence that Brahmaputra river had dried up in the state recently.

The Asia-Pacific region may be home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies including China, Japan, India and Indonesia. But, last year at least, it also was the most vulnerable to natural disasters that hampered expansion and disrupted trade.

The United Nations Economic and Social Survey of the Asia Pacific, a report released Thursday, says Asia Pacific sustained damages and losses of $266.8 billion out of $366 billion globally in 2011 — the worst year in history for catastrophes.

Scientists from 15 countries are calling for a better political response to the provision of water and energy to meet the challenge of feeding a world of 9 billion people within 30 years.

The joint statement by some of the world's leading science academies was issued on Thursday ahead of the G8 summit in the United States. It is part of the annual lobbying effort aimed at focusing the attention of world leaders on issues the scientific community regards as crucial.

Irked By Comments On Inclusive Growth
The government has taken exception to the ‘biases’ in the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Asia Pacific Human Development report, titled, One Planet, which was released on Thursday.

UNDP, required to play a neutral role in international governance, has recommended that India and other countries in the Asia Pacific region take greater responsibility to reduce emissions and warned that ‘inclusive growth’ would increase emissions, a trade-off that India cannot afford.

In a nation where a civil war and years of political deadlock have stunted prosperity and development, the burgeoning rhino population is one of Nepal's rare success stories.

The Himalayan country's endangered one-horned rhinoceros has increased its numbers significantly over recent years thanks to tightened security against poachers and community conservation programmes.

Wildlife experts spent a month last year conducting an exhaustive survey and counted 534 rhinos in Nepal's southern forests -- 99 more than when the last such census was carried out in 2008.

The Prime Minister’s Office has formed a committee led by Chief Executive Officer of Investment Board Radhesh Panta to move ahead the work on West Seti Hydro project (750 MW).

The Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Means had earlier directed that work on West Seti be moved ahead through Investment Board rather than Ministry of Energy. Citing the month-long halt on the project, the PMO formed the committee.

A soaring demand for ivory in China and the Far East is putting Africa's elephant population under strain and could see the creatures wiped out altogether by poachers in some countries, conservationists have warned.

Trade in ivory was made illegal worldwide in 1989 but the ban was lifted in 2008 to allow Southern African countries to sell stockpiled ivory to China and Japan. Campaigners say this has also fuelled the demand for illegal ivory.