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Bhutan To Pay for the Climate Sins of Others
May 04, 2007 — By Simon Denyer, Reuters
THIMPU, Bhutan -- High in the Himalayas, the isolated mountain kingdom of Bhutan has done more to protect its environment than almost any other country.
Forests cover nearly three quarters of its land, and help to absorb the greenhouse gases others emit. Its strict conservation policies help to guard one of the world's top 10 biodiversity hotspots, often to the chagrin of its own farmers. Yet Bhutan could pay a high price for the sins of others -- global warming is a major threat to its fragile ecosystem and the livelihoods of its people.
"Our farmers are paying a high price for our strict conservation policies," Agriculture Minister Sangay Ngedup told Reuters in an interview. "We are sacrificing a lot, but the world is not making a positive contribution to us." "The effect of climate change and global warming is going to cause havoc to our ecosystem here."
The most dramatic threat is posed by what scientists call Glacial Lake Outburst Floods. As the Himalaya's glaciers recede, these lakes are forming and filling with melt water all along the mountain range, dammed by the rocks of glacial moraine.
In 1994, one of those lakes burst its banks in Bhutan, and unleashed a torrent of floodwater which claimed 17 lives in the central Punakha valley, sweeping away homes, bridges and crops.
Some of Bhutan's glaciers are believed to be retreating at 20 to 30 metres a year. And as that glacial melt accelerates, 24 of Bhutan's 2,674 glacial lakes are in danger of bursting.
Some studies predict the wall separating two lakes in central Bhutan could burst as early as 2010, unleashing 53 million cubic metres of water, twice the volume of the 1994 outburst.
"You get what is almost a mountain tsunami, which can wipe out anything in its path," said Nicholas Rosellini, resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme.
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