Issue 1 - June 1999

From the Thimphu Desk

Greetings from the UNV Programme Office! We are very happy to share with you our first edition of Thuensum , a half-yearly update of the UNV programme in Bhutan.

We dedicate this first edition as a tribute to the Silver Jubilee Coronation Anniversary of His Majesty the King of Bhutan. Given the longstanding collaboration the UNV program has had with the Royal Government under His Majesty's guidance we take the opportunity to express our appreciation for a fruitful partnership that has provided opportunity for mutual benefit both in terms of increased international understanding and contributions made to the development process in Bhutan. We trust that you find the contents of this Newsletter stimulating to the development debate and learn something that you did not know about the UNV Programme in Bhutan. With 19 volunteers currently serving across a variety of sectors the following articles have been written to capture a closer glimpse of the experiences, lessons and challenges associated with life and work in Bhutan as an international volunteer. In this issue development efforts in Eastern Bhutan and conservation in the Jigme Dorji National Park are the focus of our feature articles and present important insights from the perspectives of not just the volunteers but also their counterparts in the Royal Government of Bhutan, and people from the communities in which they live and work. We hope you enjoy reading this issue and welcome your feedback on areas for improvement in the next edition. Best Wishes, or, as we say in Bhutan, Tashi Delek!

Emerging From the Past
Glimpses of Eastern Bhutan

If you took an aerial swoop of Eastern Bhutan running north to south you would see, first, the white expanse of the great Himalayan snowfields, which would give way to a dense network of mountains and valleys (actually many of them are little more than steep gorges).

These would ripple and bulge like the giant topographical muscles they are, until, to the very south, the upheaval subsides in a series of gently folding hills to meet the broad, flat vistas of the Indian plains.

Now, if you have the misfortune of being earthbound, and are travelling by car, your real descent into the region begins from the sheer, heart-stopping cliffs of the 3,900m Thrumshingla, the highest motorable pass in a country of high passes. This won't be your last such descent either, since the road- perversely named the "lateral route"- is actually little more than a black squiggle that drops and twists and rises and falls again through an elevation range that makes your mouth run dry and sends that imaginary electrocardiograph of your heart bouncing off the charts.

"I have never been through so many mountain passes in my life," says Dr. Ndzi Jonathan Budzi, UNV's Cameroonian Gynecologist Obstretician at Eastern Bhutan's Regional Referral Hospital. "It was scary." This, coming from a man as typically understated and dignified as Dr. Jonathan, is saying a lot.

By the time you get to Lingmethang, at the foot of that 3,900m drop, the biting cold, mossy pines and bewhiskered firs that look like they materialised from a book of classic Chinese brushpaint, have given way to a near tropical swelter and dense forests of broadleaf and mixed broadleaved trees.

Such dramatic variations in altitude, vegetation and climate throughout the six districts that make up the "eastern region"- Lhuntshi, Mongar, Tashiyangtsi, Tashigang, Pemagatsel, Samdrup Jongkhar- makes for an abundance of natural resources which forms the basis of the hugely successful Aromatic Essential Oils Programme tapping lemongrass oil for foreign markets, and a research and conservation project seeking to turn the area's rich store of medicinal plants into high-value cash crops for economically strapped farmers. A UNV Agronomist from India, Dr. Prem Kumar Legha, is playing a key role in both projects. The Kurichhu in Mongar and Dangmechhu in Tashigang are the region's two main rivers and, together, constitute the major sources of water if you discount a few and untamed streams, perennial and rain-fed, that gouge and scar the hillsides.

The eastern districts are some of the most highly populated in the country with Tshangla the spoken language of the people, which experts believe to be related to the Tibeto-Burmese family of languages (a hypothesis which seems to be supported by the fact that it is also spoken in parts of South Tibet). It is an area steeped in myth and simple faith- a place where the story of a demon serpent, a magical vision, and a living curse provides but one of the links to the area's rich and varied past (see pg 5 history). It is a place where- hobbled by the rugged terrain, infertile soil, and the not infrequent shortage of irrigation water- farmers are only now emerging from a hardscrabble existence.

Historically, the area was known for its handicrafts- woodcarving, canework, and some of the most exquisite textile weavings in the country- a series of religious personages, and the sacred Singye Dzong, an establishment associated with the life of Guru Padmasambhava, patron saint of the Himalayas and revered in Bhutan and Tibet as a "second Buddha". Today, Eastern Bhutan is the setting for some of the most ambitious programmes of Bhutan's current five year development cycle for national growth, the Eighth Plan (1997 to 2002).

The massive Second Eastern Zone Agricultural Project (SEZAP) aims to boost food production, enhance the income levels of the region's farmers, improve nutrition. Generous government subsidies of upto 80 and 90 percent will enable people to buy modern farm machinery that will make their work easier. The 60 Megawatt Kurichhu Hydroelectric Project, downriver from Mongar, is expected to galvanise regional economy by generating the electrical power that will feed a host of small industrial centres and businesses. The government has also set targets to raise school enrolment levels, provide adult literacy programmes, and create educational opportunities for disabled children- with the kingdom's first National Institute for the Disabled (NID) operating out of the region.

Another UNV in Eastern Bhutan works at Sherubtse, or "Peak of Knowledge", the premier institute of learning in the country, offering Honors Courses and Bachelor's Degrees in the Sciences, Commerce, Humanitarian Arts and, more recently, General Computing. Today, with the much awaited launch of email and internet services in Bhutan, the college has added a more sophisticated course in Computer Applications. A Mathematician by training, with specialisations in Computers, Dataprocessing and Statistics, Dr. Nyan Lin (from Myanmar) teaches a major part of this new course. Dr. Lin's efforts also helped his Bhutanese counterpart, Nidup Dorji, an Oxford-returned scholar who is Head of Sherubtse's Mathematics and Computer Department, set up the computer laboratory for the new course- a facility that is part of the wider Father Mackay Memorial Computer Centre (after the late Canadian Jesuit priest, Fr. William Mackay, who helped establish Sherubtse and once said of his first students that entering Sherubtse was like "jumping from the Middle Ages to a modern school in one day.")* The Regional Referral Hospital in Mongar provides a team of specialist and general physicians- UNV's Cuban ENT Specialist Dr. Alberto Paz Sarduy who left the country recently, after four years in Bhutan, was one of them- on call to attend to patients from all over the region besides providing specialised advice and support to the smaller hospitals in the individual districts. Modern medical equipment like a US$ 100,000 ultrasound machine (a grant from the United Nations Fund for Population Activities), a Boyle's Apparatus to measure the bilirubin count in human blood, and an "incubator" for premature babies, are all part of the hospital's upgrade to a regional referral centre and enables the doctors to diagnose and treat a range of complicated medical problems and complaints not possible to manage before.

Mongar, the most centrally located district, has become somewhat of a development hub for the region, and not just because of the referral hospital. Although its town square is little more than a curving line of some dozen shops and one hotel worth the name, the people one meets there are generally upbeat about their prospects, and the flurry of ongoing development activity in the outlying areas visible, giving it the feel of a Western frontier town on the make. Heavy earth excavating machinery, mammoth road rollers and Caterpillar Pay Loaders roar and lurch as they carve new roads linking remote villages to the district centre, shops anticipating enhanced buying power and an influx of visitors are stocking up on ever newer consumer goods, and construction work sprouts from the hillsides- not the least among them the new buildings of the referral hospital, which is being refurbished at a cost of Nu 284.630 million (about US$ 6.3 million)*. A motley of foreign consultants from as far away as Australia and the Netherlands flit through the district like migrating birds eagerly dispensing their expertise in town planning, the best way to provide the villages with "sustainable" irrigation canals, Environment Impact Assessments for both of the above.

"Development in Mongar has mirrored the dramatic transitions Bhutan has made as a nation," says Dasho Jigme Tshultrim, the ebullient Dzongda, or District Administrator, of Mongar. "Within the relatively short span of 20 to 30 years, we have seen lots of changes- road links, telephones, schools, hospitals- and all this from not even having shoes on our feet, when electricity was virtually unheard of. Talk to some of the older people- they'll tell you how different it was."

At 52 years Rinchen Dorji of Drepung Village- a walking distance of four hours from the town- considers himself one of these "older people". He says he has aged, if not in real terms, by the sheer enormity of the changes he has seen during his lifetime.

For instance, the domestic matchbox his children take for granted was unknown in his youth. To prepare his meals Rinchen had to coax the sparks from a rough, handmade flint, or, failing that, by whittling a piece of wood in the shape of a pencil and employing a smooth flat rock with a tubular hole on its surface (whether you could find such a rock was entirely another matter). Spinning the stick in the hole, whisk-like, generated the heat which smoldered and flared when he pushed dry leaves and other kindling into the agitated space. Needless to say, the entire operation called for an unusually high level of dexterity and, more often than not, proved futile in wet weather.

When Dasho Jigme Tshultrim says "we have come a long way" he could be speaking not just for Mongar, but for Eastern Bhutan or, for that matter, all Bhutan. Just how long a way is demonstrated by Rinchen's self-deprecating anecdote about why he never attended school, dissuaded by a rumor that (he claims) provoked widespread consternation in his village.

"We were told that the schoolmaster would make us read books in which the letters were so fine they could only have been written with a needle. And that was not all- the teachers would make us balance a small bowl of water on our heads and make us stare straight ahead without moving so that the liquid would not spill," he said, shaking his head at the memory. "Now, you tell me, who would want to go to school under such conditions?!"

Striking a Balance between Conservation and People
The Jigme Dorji National Park

Cloaked by evening shadows, it is the merest hint of a movement, a form only shades darker than the dull gray and brown of this place where tree line meets high alpine meadows and harsh, claw-like scrub.

The woman Zang-mo (her name means "well-born woman")- a member of the proud and colorful semi-nomad community of Bhutan's Laya region- sits calm and resolute at the fringes of the camp, nursing her infant son, her seven year old boy and a younger girl by her side. (Her presence is not strange since the campground is on her Tsamdro, the ancestral pasturelands to which her yaks have official grazing rights).

Sensing the excitement the unexpected visitor has caused in the camp, she begins to stir. Then, evidently mistaking the intent, she rises sharply to her feet as one of the men in the camp fumbles in his bag, producing a large pair of binoculars. "Ani Gyabe Sha-ka in- Ani Gyabe Sha-ka in," she says, raising her hands as if to call a stop. "You cannot hunt here, this is the king's protected area!"

As soon as the misunderstanding is cleared though, she is childishly delighted by the invitation to peer through the glasses herself. The animal she sees- a Musk Deer- stands poised like a statue, identifiable by its dark, compact body, tan stripes underbelly, and the twin fangs that curve down from its long snout, clearly visible even in the failing light.

We were in Jigme Dorji National Park, at 4,349 sq. kms, the largest such sanctuary in the kingdom. The headquarters of the park is a low rectangular building with neat, whitewashed walls- a wood-cabin style sunroom with tall glass windows projecting from the main building- set in a soft hollow in the shadow of the beautiful and imposing Gasa Thongmey Dzong, historically an important religious and administrative center in Northwest Bhutan.

From the building, rich loamy forests look like so many heads of broccoli covering up the many layered mountains wrapped in thick steamy mists that rise and stretch languorously in the day. South of the slope the forests have the wet, life-drenched feel of a tropical rainforest, an image heightened by the constant orchestra of myriad insects, a hundred different birdcalls, bubbling water, rushing streams and the large butterflies sporting all the colors of the rainbow that rock, careen and fall through the air like autumn leaves.

In the mountains that loom behind the Gasa Dzong, however, it is not the soft, bulbous trees of the rainforest but the sharp, jagged points of ancient pine, giant cedar and tall firtrees that define the landscape. Still further up are cold, windblown passes with nothing but rock and tundra, glacial moraines, ice, snowpeaks and the dramatic geological variations in between. This natural diversity is mirrored by a striking array of life: high above their knife-ridge aeries six Himalayan Eagles soar and wheel in an exquisitely graceful dance; elusive and legendary, the Snow Leopard stalks the park's white expanses like a ghost; lower down roam Tigers, Red Panda, the exotic Blue Sheep and the Takin- Bhutan's national animal- the horns of which call to mind a sheep, with the head of a cow, and the body of a goat. Of date, 1,434 species of plants have been identified in the park- many of them rare medicinal herbs with high commercial value- 300 species of birds and at least 31 species of mammals, including several species that are rare or endangered elsewhere in the world.

Although aided by the Buddha's injunction against killing and respect for all forms of life, values that form the cornerstones of most Bhutanese lives, increasing exposure to the outside world and the highly lucrative trade in wildlife parts has made illegal trapping and poaching new concerns in the park, calling for increased vigilance.

Providing health, education, and other social services to remote communities scattered across the park demands innovative approaches since the resulting enhancement in living standards could also fuel population growth and exert other pressures, straining the delicate balance between people, who have lived there for centuries, and the park, which is a relatively modern entity. Meanwhile, to prevent alienating the people, traditional uses of forest and parkland resources have to be maintained, and made sustainable, even as the economic aspirations of the people have to be recognised.

To meet these complex challenges, the Bhutan government has launched an Integrated Conservation and Development Programme (ICDP) which envisages efforts to boost the income levels of local people while helping them accept and appreciate the responsibilities of living in a national park, a concept most commonly understood as the "king's protected area". "The next step is to develop what we call Community Natural Resources Management Plans (CNRMP) for each of the areas," says Tshering Phuntsho, Park Warden for the Gasa region. "These may include helping people earn extra income from activities like mushroom cultivation, the cultivation of high value medicinal plants, [ecologically sensitive] tourism, the development of pastures for their livestock. The basic idea is to reduce the consumption of natural resources from the wild."

Tshering Phuntsho says the park's management uses local decisionmaking bodies (known as Gewog Yargye Tshogchungs (GYTs) and Dzongkhag Yargye Tshogchungs (DYTs) not only as forums to teach people about conservation but also as a feedback mechanism to help the management understand the concerns of the people, their problems and their perception (or misconceptions) of conservation issues.

"Traditionally, the local people have seen park staff as the enforcers, as telling them what they can and cannot do. We want to change that," says UN Volunteer Roy Cameron (UK) who is working for the park's administration as Natural Resources Manager. "We are now trying to encourage that trust between the local people and park staff."

Forging such links between local government agencies and rural communities is a familiar concept for UNV Social Forester Hans Blom (The Netherlands; also working for the Jigme Dorji National Park) whose first UNV assignment brought him to the Nepal Terai (1,400m to 2,500m) to help develop a programme focussing on what he calls a "Community Forestry Approach": among others, teaching rural Nepalese to manage their own forests in sustainable ways, redistributing wealth from the use of communal forests and natural resources more equitably, working to raise awareness about local environment issues, improvising strategies to reduce the high consumption of fuelwood (a similar problem of high fuelwood consumption has Bhutan's National Environment Commission worried, and initiating reduction measures).

"The goal was to set up a framework in which we could hand over the responsibilities of managing the forests to all the people in the community," he says. "And not, as was often the case, all the forests being used by a few rich people." "Working with local people is a fine art," says Roy Cameron. "It's a balance that can easily be upset and destroy any potential for future cooperation." Fortunately, for the future of conservation in Bhutan, encounters like the one with Zang-mo on that remote hill in the heart of the park suggest that the balance may be holding.