Mr Jorgen B Thomsen

28 January, 2008 - Bhutan still had an advantage over other countries in the region when it came to biodiversity conservation because of its large intact resources and relatively small human population said the executive director of Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), Mr Jorgen B Thomsen, who travelled around the country for a week.

“What you have that your neighbours don’t is very large intact ecosystems,” said Mr Thomsen. “There seems to be harmony between people and nature because Bhutan’s natural resources and traditional lifestyles are still intact.”

Mr Thomsen’s trip to Bhutan coincides with the beginning of their financial support to the whole region. “What we are interested in is looking at the interface between natural resource management and development.”

Bhutan, Nepal and north east India in the eastern Himalayan region are under the CEPF programme where protecting biodiversity and natural resources, without excluding development and benefits to people were the main issues, said the executive director.

However, he pointed out that urban situation was changing and worse could happen unless Bhutan starts thinking about tackling some of the predictable issues brought about by urbanisation.

Nepal and India, he cited, were large urban communities with many unemployed people and where traditional lifestyle and culture was disappearing.

For Bhutan, he said there was a real opportunity to leap forth the problems. “But only if you don’t make the same mistakes that other countries have made,” Mr Thomsen cautioned. “You only need to look at Kathmandu to see what you don’t want.”

According to Mr Thomsen, transportation is an issue that Bhutan needs to deal with because the road systems were clearly not built to sustain the kind of growth in vehicles. “It’s possible people will be sitting in traffic jams in all your main roads.”

Appreciating Bhutan’s conservation policies, he said that having a constitution that talks about a certain forest coverage as part of the country’s national identity is unique, something he hasn’t seen anywhere else in the world.

The CEPF programme in Bhutan was launched on May 26, 2006. A total grant of USD 326,000 has been given to the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature for building grassroots support for conservation, Kuensel Corporation Limited to help inform and educate the nation on biodiversity conservation and sustainable development issues, Royal Institute of Management for management of social forestry and to Norden Pines, a sawmill factory in Bumthang for production of alternative fuel from sawdust and other wood waste.

CEPF is a partnership of donors including the World Bank, which manages the fund to support participation of civil society organisations in conservation activities in bio-diversity hot spots around the world.