Rachel Shackelford

Gen 100: Section 006

Gentile
10 November 2015
Bhutan, developing differently.
Bhutan is a country thats located in South East Asia. Its surrounded by many other
countries, and rivers that form deep valleys. This country is mostly covered by mountains due to
the fact that its very close to the Himalayas. Its surrounded by India and China, one developing
and one developed country. This is very helpful for Bhutan but can also raise many challenges
for the country. Bhutans population, for example, is not growing rapidly. The infant mortality
rate is high so the population growth is only about 1.2 percent(CIA: The World Factbook, 2010).
The life expectancy is about 66 in Bhutan as well. The main livelihood for most of Bhutans
residents is agriculture their economy lives off of farming and animal husbandry. This explains
as to why the economy is so small. Bhutan relies heavily on India for many of its resources and
business. Eliminating poverty is also a big issue. Why Bhutan is still developing is a great
question, because some of their methods of addressing issues such as poverty are very well
developed. Also why the industrial part of their society isnt evolving is another great question.
When reviewing this country some may blame the location as to why it isnt a developed
country, this cant be completely to blame.
Bhutans location has benefitted them in ways that may not have been obviously seen by
many. A lot of Bhutans land is forest, there is a struggle on how to use forest resources better.
Sustainable uses of the forests is a very common issue, because right now they are extremely
cautious of everything when it comes to this part of their environment. There have been many

bans put in place in order to preserve these forests. They provide many resources for the
community, even though the countrys economy is still suffering(Stephenson, 1994).
Something thats very unique about Bhutan is that they measure their rate of poverty in a
non-conventional way. The country measures ones access to certain resources, such as land,
water, and food then measures the poverty rate. Bhutan before its measure of poverty in 2000
didnt believe that the poverty rate was very high. The study later showed that thirty-two
percent of the country was counted as poor in 2003 (Osmani, S., Bajracharya, B., Tenzing, S., &
Wangyal, T, 2007). This was extremely surprising to everyone including the countries
government.
Even though the countrys poverty rate is fairly high, they are developing well in many
ways. They took a different approach to fixing their poverty rate. They government would give
land and timber out to its people so they could have a place to grow their food so they wouldnt
starve. They would also have land to have their own houses, and timber to build them. This is
completely different than the methods of other developing countries around them. Bhutan also
has a struggling industrial sector. Most of their business is small, family owned businesses. This
leads to issues because of how hard it is for these small business to grow and benefit the
economy, because the demand doesnt tend to go up. A small percent consists of large businesses
that are owned by the government.
Obviously being a developing country Bhutan has lots of issues that need to be addressed
and or resolved. Of them being environmental issues, poverty rate, and the agricultural economy.
How have the mountains, lack of water ways, and need to conserve forests influenced the
country? How has the poverty rate been changing and what has influenced it? What can be done
to help improve an economy that is based mostly on agriculture and trade.

As said before the environmental issues of Bhutan are a high concern for the country. The
country is covered by mountains and forests. Forests supply energy for the countries mostly rural
life. Conserving these forests is becoming harder, this is largely due to the roads and such that
are being made available and how close the forests are in India(Stephenson, 1994). The country
is afraid of exploiting the forests. Many wish to sell and trade the timber because of how small
the countrys economy is(THOTTAM & WOLVERSON, 2012). Something thats unique is that
Bhutan is looking at the future, or their sustainable methods of agriculture first. Even though the
economy is not very good, they refuse to sell the timber from the forest in order to improve the
economy. They believe that other countries do not understand this ideal, but in the long run it
makes sense. Farming and settlement are not allowed in the forest area, which is shocking due to
the fact that 75 percent of the country is forest. Also the government wants the forests to
increase, so replanting in communitys that use timber for power is encouraged. Resources such
as The forests are vulnerable due to the adverse impacts of climate change and environmental
degradation(Uddin, Taplin, & Yu, 2007). This obviously contrasts what the United States would
do. The United States tends to put money first, instead of thinking about consequences of using
too many natural resources.
Now poverty is a very tricky issue in this country. They have tried a different approach
than most countries to try to reduce the poverty rate. This has been improving, but regardless of
how you approach the poverty issue, its hard for a country like Bhutan to improve when its
economy is bad. As said before, when they measured the poverty rate they were very surprised
by the numbers that were found. Bhutan is a lot like other countries with this though, The rural
poor struggle to earn enough from farming, so they migrate to overburdened urban areas(
THOTTAM & WOLVERSON, 2012). This obviously just moves the stress from one area to the

other, without fixing anything. Even through all of this, something thats admirable of this
country is that they truly care for the welfare of their people. They measure the countries
progress by Gross National Happiness, and try to base all of their policies and actions on this
ideal. They plan to build up their country through the four pillars of Gross National Happiness,
these include economic development, conservation of the environment, preservation of culture,
and good governance (THOTTAM, & WOLVERSON, 2012). These are all great structures to
follow when improving the country, but they havent seemed to measure up since their
establishment in 2008.
Most of the countrys income is agriculture. For a country with mostly forest for their
farming land this can be hard. Along with the hardships of the rural people with having no
guarantee the income they will receive from their crops, disasters also damage the crops such as
landslides. Because of all of these issues it has been decided by the government to go for
agricultural development, two of the countrys main cash crops are being rapidly grown, when
this program started the effects were not clearly seen, but this may lead to issues for the country
in the near future(Young, 1991). This ends up bringing in people and putting a strain of the local
resources. Not only this, but the industrial industry of this country is lacking as well. The
highlight of this countrys economy is the tourism. They are heavily reliant of the income they
receive from tourism, in order to sustain their economy, they must improve their large-scale
business and shy away from the income being received by tourism.
Now there is no one solution for each of these problems. This is easily seen through the
research within this paper. If there was an easy solution, this country would have certainly found
it. Starting with the environmental issues, the laws that they have in place to preserve the forests
are a great to start. Also the fact that the government encourages the people who need the timber

to replant every tree thats taken down is a step in the right direction. Something that would
really benefit this country would be some type of ration of the timber to the people. Each
community or village should be allowed a certain amount of timber for the year based on the
population of that village. They should also replant all of the trees that were cut down for their
timber. This would give the people something to live off of, and would help to lessen the need to
cut down more trees and trying to sell them. This obviously wouldnt solve this issue, but it
would most likely give the government the chance to focus on other issues at hand.
Other issues at hand, such as poverty. The government also gives out timber so that their
people can build homes a such, therefore, reducing the poverty rate if only by a little. Bhutans
view on measuring Gross National Happiness, is a nice and positive change than most other
countries. Still, they should focus on measureable variables when determining the poverty rate,
and then later on when things have improved focus more on the Gross National Happiness. This
may be a negative view, and the government is against this approach, but they must focus on the
well-being of their people.
During a study from 2003-2007 about reducing poverty this was found that when
income alone is used to target the poor, inclusion errors are marginal but exclusion errors are
sizeable. Despite Bhutan's significant progress, challenges remain as poverty is still high in rural
areas (Santos, 2013). This highlights the fact that the rural areas, which is most of this country,
struggles even with the improvements. A large part of the poverty issue is the lack of business
within this country. The migrants flee to Bhutan in order to find work for certain parts of the
year. A lot of these migrants come from India, and not many of the Bhutanese leave the country
to find work because of their lack of contact with the outside world (Chand, 2013). This labor
migration discourages local development (Chand, 2013). There are many benefits of labor

migration, but for the migrants the negative usually outweighs the positive. Also this large
amount of labor migration, somewhat damages Bhutans economy because a lot of the work is
going to the migrants and not its own people. In a country suffering so much from poverty, they
should limit the amount of migrant workers coming into the country in order to try and keep
some of their own jobs. This is yet again another issue the United States has struggled with. The
United States poverty rate is not nearly as high, but the debate of closing the borders to preserve
jobs has been going on for years. Its something to think about, if the poverty rate were this high
in the US would they decide to close their borders?
The last issue to be discussed is the agricultural economy, which goes hand in hand with
poverty. As said before, more big business should be introduced to this country. This is not to
eliminate or decrease the agricultural economy. A mostly agricultural economy just isnt a safe
bet for a developing country such as Bhutan. They cant use the majority of their land because of
the conservation of the forests, the natural disasters reek havoc on the crops, and climate change
hurts the crops as well. Agriculture is the main source of livelihood that supports a large
proportion of residents of the tributaries of the Brahmaputra River Basin (Amoako Johnson, F.,
& Hutton, C, 2014). An income based solely on agriculture isnt the way to go. With a large
influence of industry, new technologies along with more opportunities for the rural poor would
be introduced. Technologies to help protect the crops from the damage of natural disasters. A
program thats going to help immensely is to help increase agriculture with climate resilient
production of crops(IFAD project in BHUTAN, 2015). Theres high hopes for this plan, and the
environmental struggles being a huge issue within this country its a great approach to find a
solution.

Bhutan is a strange country, that not many people know of. If asked where Bhutan was,
or what the economy was like most of those asked wouldnt have a clue. Though it may be little,
and has a high poverty rate thats not all that it is. This country is truly developing differently,
using a wide array of approaches to their most common issues. With the idea of measuring Gross
National Happiness instead of the poverty rate the government tries its hardest to support the
rural poor by giving them means to build a shelter and land to farm and produce their own food.
This country also is choosing to conserve the countrys resources instead of going through them
in a time of need. Focusing on maintaining these resources until better methods of conserving
them come into play. Bhutan needs to reach out to other countries, being so close to India and
China the introduction of big business could definitely benefit this country. Both China and India
have large countries, with large populations that could help Bhutans business industry. Also with
booming business industries large amounts of technology would help the people as well.
Technology to help yield more crops, make climate resistant crops, and better means for
transporting the crops. Bhutan being isolated doesnt help the economy, thats why more
transportation is key. Theres no single solution to this countries issues, but approaches are being
taken to improve it. Theres a lot this country needs to work on, but theres also a lot to learn
from this country.
References
Amoako Johnson, F., & Hutton, C. (2014). Dependence on agriculture and ecosystem services
for livelihood in Northeast India and Bhutan: vulnerability to climate change in the Tropical
River Basins of the Upper Brahmaputra. Climatic Change, 127(1), 107-121.
doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0573-7
Chand, R. (2013). Labour Migration as a Livelihood Strategy in Far East Bhutan: a Case Study

of a Marginal Bhutanese Community. Croatian Geographical Bulletin, 75(2), 41-57.

CIA: The World Factbook: Bhutan. (2010). CIA World Fact Book, 77-80.
IFAD project in BHUTAN. (2015, July 30). Retrieved October 19, 2015.
Osmani, S., Bajracharya, B., Tenzing, S., & Wangyal, T. (2007, August 1). Retrieved October 27,
2015, from
https://web.archive.org/web/20110728143237/http://www.bt.undp.org/assets/files/publication/Ma
croeco_cs_for_Bhutan.pdf
Santos, M. (2013). Tracking Poverty Reduction in Bhutan: Income Deprivation Alongside
Deprivation in Other Sources of Happiness. Social Indicators Research, 112(2), 259-290.
doi:10.1007/s11205-013-0248-4
Stephenson, B. (1994). Bhutan: The development dilemma. Geographical (Campion Interactive
Publishing), 66(3), 51.
THOTTAM, J., & WOLVERSON, R. (2012). THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Time, 180(17),
1-14.
Uddin, S. N., Taplin, R., & Yu, X. (2007). Energy, environment and development in Bhutan.
Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 11(9), 2083-2103. doi:10.1016/j.rser.2006.03.008
Young, L. J. (1991). Agricultural changes in Bhutan: Some environmental questions.
Geographical Journal, 157(2), 172-178.