Thimphu, May 2 (Inditop.com) Where on the earth would you find farmers who willingly vacate their homes and hearths to let rare birds have a shot at life? In environment-conscious Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, also called Drug Yul or “The Land of the Thunder Dragon”.
In the Buddhist country where happiness, not material success, is a way to measure well-being, hundreds of farmers and their families in Phobjikha Valley left their land behind many years ago so that the world’s last few hundred black-necked cranes could survive.
This bowl-shaped valley is now part of a wildlife sanctuary where a flock of some 400 endangered black-necked cranes arrive from Tibet in winter.
It is a shining example of environment-consciousness in Bhutan where forests cover over 72 percent of its 38,300 sq km land. Under the country’s law, 60 percent of the kingdom must remain covered by forests for all times to come.
The Bhutanese have through the centuries lived a simple and peaceful life infused with a dose of spirituality – committed to sane and sustainable growth in contrast to the materialistic web of life in the rest of the world.
When the world is worried about recession, the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) coined by former king Jigme Singye Wangchuck in the early 1970s offers an alternative vision.
The GNH doesn’t mean living an ascetic life. Bhutanese live a normal life but maintain a balance between greed and need.
Not that the Bhutanese are shying away from modernisation. They too are fast embarking on technological changes. That is why you see cellphones on many an ear and high speed internet cafes at every corner.
But in their leap into development, the Bhutanese are legally bound to conserve their pristine environment, rich culture and sacred heritage.
“The Bhutanese view material wealth as a means and not an end to the real goal of happiness,” Damchi Ringzin, a photojournalist, summed up the concept to IANS. “We are preserving our culture and nature without forgoing the benefits of globalisation.”
The Bhutanese, it is said, will always forsake money for happiness. But how? “For example, a good number of Bhutanese who study abroad return home sacrificing a possible luxurious life they could live in the West. And in Bhutan they earn a fraction of what people in the West earn but are happier than people in the West.”
Bhutan doesn’t have traffic lights simply because there are so few vehicles in the country of 680,000 people. People would rather walk small distances than use a car, even it means traversing up and down steep slopes.
The Bhutan government has mandated that in schools and public offices, women wear the traditional ‘kira’ and men the ‘gho’, a kind of wrapper that comes to the knees from the neck.
There is a strict ban on the sale of tobacco, and smoking invites legal action. And people happily obey.
“All this is being done in the pursuit of happiness to keep intact our traditional culture,” Tashi Wangdi, a hotelier, told this visiting IANS correspondent.
