Year: 2009

WHERE HAVE THE WHITE FLAKES GONE?

 

ImageMarch 01, 2009-Thimphu: The damp Thimphu weather has got into Deki, 23. For the past few days, the first thing she has been doing when she gets up in the morning is to part her window curtains and look outside. She has been disappointed all these days. 

Like Deki, many Thimphu residents are still waiting for the first snowfall of the year. Though the prime time for the snow has already passed, the damp weather of late has resurrected the hope for a snowfall.  
 

“It’s the fifth day since it started raining every afternoon but the rain is not bringing the white flakes,” Deki said.

Continue reading WHERE HAVE THE WHITE FLAKES GONE?

Buddhist answers to common questions

20 February, 2009 – Lam Shenphen Zangpo answers basic questions that every Bhutanese man, woman, and child on the street wants to know.

The recent lifting of the ban of meat sales during auspicious months raises questions about vegetarianism. Some people claim that Buddhists should not eat meat. Yet, even our lams take meat. What actually is Buddhism’s position on meat eating?
When discussing meat consumption, it is important to consider the debate in context. Buddhism is not a moral, but wisdom based path. When the Buddha rose from his seat of kusha grass under the bodhi tree, he did not intend to establish a religion called Buddhism, but instead point the way for all beings to awake to their rich, innate heritage of basic goodness. 

When we consider any Buddhist practice, we should bear this in mind. Rules of conduct are subordinate to this ultimate goal. Continue reading Buddhist answers to common questions

Nabji-Korphu’s cardamom glory days

A blight once decimated their only cash crop, now hope springs anew 

The cardamom disease left Nabji-Korphu high and dry

20 February, 2009 – A sweet fragrance of cardamom fills the air in Nabji Korphu as the evening breeze blows over the quiet village. But the cardamom story is not as sweet as its fragrance when villagers recall how their main cash crop was wiped out a decade ago.

Located at the foothills of the rugged Black Mountain range between Trongsa and Zhemgang dzongkhags, Nabji Korphu was once famous for its abundance of cardamom, claim villagers. Not anymore.

Today, acres of cardamom plantation lie overgrown with bushes and farmers, who’d grown rich on the spice, blame a disease, which dried their source of cash.

It all started in the early 1990s, say farmers. “The plant’s leaves turned yellow, wilted and died; the fruit became hard and the juice white,” said a farmer. “It was all over.”

The blight (a plant disease), which affected many cardamom growing regions, did not spare Nabji- Korphu. “Within years, villagers started working as daily wage earners for cash,” said a farmer.

Villagers said that, a decade ago, people of Nabji Korphu were fairly rich. With cardamom as their staple cash crop, almost all of the 221 households earned about Nu 20,000 to Nu 150,000 a year. Continue reading Nabji-Korphu’s cardamom glory days

Eco-trail windfall for local economy

Tourism spin-off uplifts Trongsa farmers’ standard of living

The trail is the source of additional income to farmers

It’s now winter but farmer Thinley of Trongsa is looking forward to next autumn. Not that he’s particularly crazy about the season, though things may seem nicer then. What he’s excited about is the stream of tourists that the fall delivers.

Tourists mean opportunity for work, to make some money.

The 50-year-old lanky man from Nabji village, made about Nu 10,000 in 2008 portering tourist bags and tents and foodstuff using his ponies. Fortunately for him, since the government opened the Nabji-Korphu eco-tourism trail, tourists have been coming to the region. Their numbers are not huge, but enough to keep him occupied- from autumn through winter, the seasons tourists visit. Winter is not bitter cold like in Paro or Bumthang, it’s relatively balmy. Continue reading Eco-trail windfall for local economy

Equine fatalities from epotorium plant

Nabji-Korphu horses falling by the eco-tourism trail

Nabji: Horses are the only means of transport

When the government started the Nabji-Korphu eco-tourism trail a few years ago, locals residing along the trail found in horses a source of quick cash inflow. The trail became popular with tourists and farmers grabbed the new opportunity with both hands. However, with many horses falling victim to what villagers suspect to be a strange disease in the last two years, locals are worried sick.

“My two mules died last year, causing me a loss of Nu 30,000,” said Pema Gyeltshen from Korphu. Pema Geltshen, a father of five school-going children, ferries loads from Reutala, the nearest road head to his village. “With the opening of Nabji-Korphu eco-tourism trail, horses become an important source of income to us,” he said, adding that, given the remoteness of the place, horses were the only means of transport.

In Korphu, almost all the 186 households own about two to three horses each. With numerous reports of horses dying, villagers are anxious. “Last year alone, Korphu lost about 30 horses,” said a 66-year-old resident, Yuden. Villagers say that about 20 horses died in 2008 in Nabji and at least six died in Nimzhong village. They say that horses do not survive even a day if they have the disease. A tshogpa from Nabji village, Dorji, lost his three horses, one by one, to the fell disease. “I lost about Nu 36,000,” he said. Continue reading Equine fatalities from epotorium plant

Water scarcity threatens three villages in Trongsa

With their only drinking water source drying up quicker than they imagined, farmers in three villages in Langthel gewog, Trongsa are being threatened of drinking water shortage.

Villagers from Bezam, Ngormey and Sheling in lower Trongsa said that they had to skip meals sometimes because there was not enough water for all the households. Although the government had, under the rural water supply scheme, provided drinking water to the three villages, the source was not reliable, according to villagers.

“The water is not enough, the source is not reliable,” said Jigme, a 70 year-old farmer from Ngormey pointing to a dry tap in front of his house. “The tap remains like this (dry) for weeks. There is not enough water to even cook meals.” Continue reading Water scarcity threatens three villages in Trongsa

A Demon-inspired Migration

Farmers in rural Bhutan abandon their villages when wild animals attack crops or humans, or they lose their farmland to landslides or even in search of a better life. Phungshing villagers in Thrimshing dungkhag have a spookier reason. Villagers started leaving Phungshing in the early 1990s when the local paw (shaman) told them that the death of a middle-aged villager was caused by a demon that resided below the village. More people died in the following years and villagers started abandoning Phungshing in droves.

Located on a gentle slope of a low hill descending into the Ngera Ama chhu (river), Phungshing is a fertile village where farmers grow maize, potato, chili and orange. According to villagers, since the shaman’s warning, many people, who did not heed the warning, died. They say most deaths were sudden and strange.  About half a dozen people from that village have perished so far. A household, according to villagers, moved away for good after losing two members in successive years. Continue reading A Demon-inspired Migration

10 million hazelnut to be planted in Bhutan

January 30: Over the next five years, 10 million hazelnut trees will be grown across Bhutan. This project will be undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture and Sage Private Limited, a private enterprise based in the US. The project aims to improve the livelihood of the farmers, generate employment and promote environment conservation.

A memorandum of understating for the project was signed between the Ministry of Agriculture and Sage Private Limited today. It was signed by the Agriculture Minister Lyonpo Dr. Pema Gyamtsho and Managing Partner of Sage Partners Limited, Daniel Spitzer.

Hazelnut cultivation is new in Bhutan. Except for some research trial plots in Yesepang and Khangma, currently there is no hazelnut plantation in the country. More than 20,000 acres of degraded, barren and agriculturally unproductive land all across the country will be used to cultivate hazelnut.

The Agriculture Minister Lyonpo Dr. Pema Gyamtsho said it will be a private-public partnership project. He said the project will bring in multiple benefits. Continue reading 10 million hazelnut to be planted in Bhutan

A More Humane Way to Measure Progress

How can you tell if your life is getting better? One answer is to ask a statistician. The problem, however, is that you might not like, understand or remotely identify with the answer you receive.

For much of the postwar period, statisticians have concentrated on dry, macro-economic measures to document the changes going on in societies around the world – changes in gross domestic product and international trade flows, for example. That was fine for policymakers, for whom economic growth and advances in globalisation were evidence of a job well done. But for ordinary people, measures like these were too detached from their everyday life to have real meaning, and worse, sometimes contradicted their own experience. Relentless economic growth often seemed to pass many people by; many felt life was not improving, and that globalisation was bringing notable downsides. Continue reading A More Humane Way to Measure Progress

Saving the White-bellied Heron

 

Habitat encroached? A line of trucks on the banks of Punatsangchhu

The rare and endangered White-bellied Heron, spotted mainly along the Punatsangchhu basin in Punakha, might, after all, have a protected home.

With major developmental activities taking place along the Punatshangchhu area to generate 10,000 MW by 2020, there was a concern among nature conservationists that the activities and growing population in the area would severely alter or destroy the habitat for the birds. And although the upper Phochhu area was declared protected for White-bellied Herons in 2007, the Natural Resources Development Corporation Ltd. (NRDCL) recently asked the government to lift the ban on quarrying operations in the area to meet the growing demand for sand. Continue reading Saving the White-bellied Heron