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Trees or cows?

3 January 2009

Villagers in Lumang and Thrimshing need more than a couple of new Ficus trees and some vegetable seeds to prevent land degradation and achieve sustainable land management, according to Trashigang’s District Livestock Officer.

“We cannot make any impact with one or two plantations of fruits, ficus and fodder trees. Plantations would be required in massive amount to prevent land degradation. To conserve environment and prevent land degradation we would require trees and not vegetables,” said Dr Tshering Dorjee.

However, Tshering Dorji, the Sustainable Land Management Project Manager, defended the planting of trees saying it would be done according to villagers’ land capacity. It would be unwise to force farmers to plant trees all over their land and leaving none for cultivation, he added.

“There are people who do not have more than one acre of land. If we tell them to plant trees in the entire area there would be no land to cultivate crops. This would not benefit but harm the villagers’ livelihood,” said Tshering Dorji.

Tshering Dorjee pointed out that SLMP has completed its tenure in Radhi with little impact on conservation of environment. He said this is because cattle numbers have been growing at the same time as reclamation of the environment and before plantations are done, it is important to reduce the number of cattle. Inferior breeds should also be removed. “If we do not dispose the inferior breed and do not control the population of the cattle then it would be hard to control the forest degradation that has caused the land degradation in the villages of Lumang Gewog,” said Tshering Dorjee.

According to Watershed Management and Soil and water conservation specialist, SNV-east placed in RC Wengkhar, Thinlay Wangchuk, 20 crowns of asparagus would not generate any income to the villagers nor help to improve their livelihood.

“This is something that we should ask ourselves. It would be better to switch on to something like poultry farm. If the villagers do not have enough land to cultivate asparagus for commercial purpose then we have to switch on to something that would improve their livelihood.

For instance a poultry farm,” he said. But Tshering Dorjee said that with the ban on importing poultry because of bird flu, the dzongkhag had not been able to meet the demand for 5000 chicks. He said, to improve the livelihood of villagers, SLMP could support stall feeding which would reduce the farmers’ dependence on the tsamdro and cutting down green fodder in winter. The villagers could use stover treatment, like maize straw. Stall feeding would not only preserve environment but increase villagers’ income due to an increase in dairy production.

SLMP did not accept the idea of stall feeding because it involved infrastructure which had not been approved. It would be included in the thematic proposal. “Stall feeding includes infrastructure development which the SLMP do not support. But probably could be supported through SLMP TP thematic proposal,” said Tshering Dorji.

BY TEMPA WANGDI

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