Interestingly enough, a lot of smaller, poorer countries have much better policies regarding environmental issues and wildlife conservation than you see from more powerful Western nations. Ecuador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic all come to mind, but there’s one country which particularly stands out to me.
I’m talking about Bhutan, a small landlocked country in the Himalayas. Its government operates based on a philosophy called Gross National Happiness, one of the four fundamental pillars of which is environmental protection. Needless to say, they’ve done an outstanding job at it too.
72% of Bhutan’s land is covered in forest, the tenth highest percentage of any country, and the second highest in Asia. For comparison, my country, Ireland, is 11% forested. Furthermore, more than half of the nation is under a protected area, the third highest proportion of any country (after Venezuela and Slovenia).
This protected land is divided between nine national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and nature reserves, which are all interconnected via biological corridors, shown in dark green below. These are strips of preserved habitats which allow animals to migrate between the different sanctuaries.
It’s doing its part when it comes to fighting global warming too. Though it produces around 2.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, its vast forests absorb and sequester around double that. This makes it the only known carbon negative country in the world, although Suriname’s government also claims this.
Bhutan is nestled in the Eastern Himalayas, one of the most biodiverse regions in the whole world, and it has an incredible abundance of wildlife, which it guards well. For being involved in some way in the poaching of Bengal tigers or snow leopards, you can be fined the equivalent of 13,700 US dollars, imprisoned for a decade, or both.
In addition to these beautiful big cats, the country is home to sloth bears, black bears, clouded leopards, dholes, wolves, red pandas, musk deer, various rare species of monkeys, and a wealth of bird life. The national animal is the takin, a strange, obscure species of ungulate closely related to sheep.
As the nation develops and industrializes, it will likely face challenges in maintaining its pristine record, but for now, Bhutan is doing an amazing job at guarding its rich natural environment. There’s a lot here that other countries could learn from.
Image source Google
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