The Land of the Thunder Dragon: Policy and Religion

Spring 2023 was, what I hope, a start to my journey with Bhutan.

Although I have always had a fascination towards the majestic mountains that stand guard to the North of India and have visited the Himalayas a few times, it has always felt like a far-away land that was just a little far out of reach for me to interact with it in any meaningful way. I have explored the Himalayas a few times - once on a trip to Kashmir and the second, a trip to Leh, Ladakh. On my first trip, I fell in love with snow and made my first snowman and went skiing on the hills of Gulmarg.

By the time I visited Leh, I was in college and I knew the direction in which I wanted my life to go in and I was able to connect more with the place beyond the awe-inspiring scenic views, although those were certainly enjoyed. I could feel the rich local atmosphere and felt the cohesive atmosphere. A year later when I spoke with a Tibetan monk who has been to Leh and Bhutan, he said that they have a similar feeling of a close-knit family. Exactly as I had imagined.

I will return to the main story rather than gush on about my encounters with the Himalayas. In February 2023,  I decided that for my International Environmental Policy class, I was writing a paper on Bhutan, The Land of the Thunder Dragon. I spent my time pouring over government documents, research papers on ecology and policy, anything that could get me close to understand more about Bhutan's forest management policy. The class encouraged us to look not only at the actual policy, but its real impacts on people's livelihoods.

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Through the structure of a White Paper, I discussed Zoning in ProtectedAreas (PAs) of Bhutan as a policy option. The map above shows all of the protected areas and biological corridors of Bhutan. Even just by this map you can see just how much of this small country is covered in protected areas and forest corridors.

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Incidentally, I was also taking a class on Buddhism this semester, and I realized how much of Bhutan's version of Buddhism interacts with the tenants of environmental conservation. As it came time to write a final paper for this class, I knew that I HAD to write a paper on how religion impacts environmental policy and people's view towards the policy in place. Although this was a more abstract idea, I was able to scrounge up some literature on this topic from the recesses of the internet.

So essentially, yes, I did write two papers in the span of 4 months on this tiny country. And no, it did not feel anywhere close to the ending of my relationship with Bhutan. I am only looking forward to when I can go to Bhutan and see how much of what I believe about its idillic environmental policy is true!

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If you would like to read the papers, please feel free to do so. This is the paper I wrote in the 'International Environmental Policy' class taught by Marc Anthonisen and here is the one I wrote in Eric Steinschneider's class, 'Seeking the Buddha'. These two professors also deserve a shout-out for their encouragement and overall amazing classes for a nerd like me!