Environmental issues in Bhutan
[1][2] Within the Bhutanese government, the independent National Environment Commission (NEC)[3] and Bhutan Trust Fund,[4][5] as well as the executive Ministries of Health (for chemical and radioactive waste),[6] Economic Affairs,[7] and Agriculture and Forests (Department of Forestry Services)[8] are tasked with addressing environmental issues.
[12] The ban on plastic bags, however, has proven a daunting challenge in implementation and enforcement because of the practicality of lightweight airtight storage and a lack of feasible alternatives.
Because affordable electricity was not available throughout the country, the government established fuelwood plantations near villages to accommodate daily needs and to promote forest conservation.
In response, the government has implemented an insurance scheme, begun constructing solar powered alarm fences, watch towers, search lights, and has provided fodder and salt licks outside human settlement areas to encourage animals to stay away.
[20] Pasakha, in Phuentsholing, is a major industrial center and has been the focus of many industry-related environmental issues brought since Bhutan began its development programs in the 1960s.
[22] Since 2006, significant air pollution, largely attributed to external sources in India, has manifested in a brown haze in the atmosphere above Bhutan.
Semiannual NEC site visits check for compliance with existing regulation and may impose relatively trivial fines, however living conditions remained poor due to dust.
[21] Through 2011, many thromdes and smaller villages in Bhutan had pits or areas for burning refuse due to a lack of designated landfills or disposal sites.
Through 2008, however, protected areas expanded significantly with the establishment of Wangchuck Centennial Park, spanning a 4,914 square kilometres (1,897 sq mi) swath in northern Bhutan.
[4][5] By 2011, human development and illegal activities such as habitat destruction and poaching threaten to wipe out endangered species, including the white bellied heron, one of the country's rarest birds.
Though protected within Bhutan, wildlife products including rhinoceros horn, tiger bones, musk, and cordyceps sinensis command high prices outside the kingdom.
Tangible climate change has resulted in the warming and recession of many of Bhutan's glaciers, increasing the frequency and severity of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).
A 2008 United Nations report suggested that due to rising temperatures, glaciers in Bhutan were retreating at a rate of 30–40 meters per year, poised to make many lakes burst their banks and send millions of gallons of floodwater downstream.
[38] Similarly, the member nations of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) adopted bilateral agreements including measures on climate change and glaciers at its summit in April 2010.
"[41] Further studies in 2009 indicated the rate of glacial melt in Bhutan was three times the world average, and that over the previous three decades regional temperatures had risen by 2.7 °C (36.9 °F).
[45] On the other hand, a study whose results were published in 2011 indicated glacial melt depended on several factors including debris cover, and that more than half of the glaciers in the Himalaya were stable or were in fact growing.
The study, conducted by the Universities of California and Potsdam and published in the journal Nature Geoscience, was based on 286 glaciers along the Himalaya and Hindu Kush from Bhutan to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Double harvests in late autumn prevent production of a single mature crop and raise the specter of reduced yields in the following summer.
A progressive government-sponsored forestry conservation policy strove to balance revenue needs with ecological considerations, water management, and soil preservation.
Success in managing its forest resources had long been critical to the local environment and economy and also affected downstream floodplains in India and Bangladesh.
Uncontrolled felling of trees in the 1970s by private companies in logging areas and by rural populations along roads and in main valleys stripped hillsides and caused serious erosion.
Through 2011, many relatively urban areas lacked designated landfills and effective waste disposal systems, prompting residents to burn garbage, dump it, or simply throw it off a cliff.
As of 2011, Thimphu alone produced some 51 tonnes (8,000 st) of waste daily, at an average household output of 0.96 kilograms (2.1 lb);[51] this represented a nearly threefold increase over the three prior years.
[53][54] Thimphu municipal authorities also addressed the ubiquitous plastic in its refuse with a shredder for PET bottles to facilitate transport to recycling in India.
[49] Villages near designated open air landfills and burning sites likewise report pollution and toxicity from runoff, as well as excess scavenger activity, posing health hazards.
[58] With the advent of loudspeakers, headphones, and rumbling engines, noise pollution has been identified in Bhutanese media as an environmental concern, citing negative potentials ranging from distraction to deafness.
