The Cause For The Miserable Failure of Bhutan’s Conservation Policy

My view is that the best conservation policy is when conservation is placed at par with human development and livelihood - not above, or below it. When conservation becomes a stumbling block to human progress - conservation will ultimately suffer - no doubt about it. And, in the same vein, when environment suffers, it will retaliate and do on to humanity what humans do to it.

In other words, a good conservation policy is when one is able to maintain a balance - it is obviously not about according supremacy to one species over another. That is where Bhutan’s conservation policy has proven to be a miserable failure, with devastating results the most brunt of which is borne by the clueless rural population of Bhutan.

Because of our ill-conceived conservation policy, thousands of rural farmers spend sleepless nights clanging empty tins all night long, in an effort to ward off wild animals marauding their crops.

Given our existing rules, hundreds of thousands of Ngultrums are forced to be spent on buying stuffed synthetic tigers made in China - to act as scarecrows, in an attempt to scare off the monkeys and deer and porcupine that pillage the farmers’ crops. Unable to withstand the incessant attacks by the wildlife, the farmers are forced to submit and migrate to urban centers to eek out a living - creating Goongtongs (empty households) and, in some cases, Yueltongs (empty villages). In its wake, food security remains a distant dream - because farm production is in decline, year after year.

Rural farmers are reduced to using synthetic stuffed tigers made in China - in an effort to scare away marauding wildlife that predate on their crops.

And, those without choice who are forced to remain in their ancestral homes have to face additional burdens of water shortages - both for drinking as well as for farming, because the water sources are drying up. This is in a country that has gloated that we have the highest per capita water resource in the whole of Asia. No one seems to ask, or care, why this is happening.

We claim that we are a country with 70-80% forest coverage and yet, we import timber worth as high as Nu.3.00 billion a year.

So, tell me, where are all the supposedly brilliant brains of the Bhutanese planners and thinkers? I have a feeling that they have all been relocated inside a single person’s skull - that of Forest Analyst Dr. Phuntsho Namgyel’s.

Recently I read his article in the Kuensel of 22nd November, 2022, titled “Decolonising the Bhutan Forest Bill 2021”. He spells out in plain language what is the problem with our conservation policy that is causing long-term and irreversible problem for the country. Particularly at a time when the Parliament is discussing new Forest Bill of Bhutan 2021, reading his thoughts on the subject would go a long way in reassessing where we have gone wrong.

Trust me, he applies science and backs it up with logic and common sense. But like an eminent member of the Bhutanese society recently told me:

“Only if the Bhutanese cared enough”.