Use of our mountain slopes

30 August 2009

With the rising rural to urban migration, the constraints on urban infrastructure will keep on increasing. It will be unrealistic to assume that this flow of people from villages to the towns will stop in the foreseeable future. Our towns will keep on expanding in a planned way as well as in an unplanned, haphazard and illegal settlement manner.

Take Thimphu for an example – the pristine Dashi Village with lush green paddy fields to the east of Pangrizampa, is growing into an unplanned settlement. In fact it has become a mini-town built in paddy fields of yester years.

The government policy of not allowing construction in wet land field is circumvented in a number of ways. If one has more than 5 acres of land then you can sell in sizes of multiple 10 or 15 decimal plots. If a person buys such a plot of wet land and this happens to be his only registered land, he can then approach for permit to construct a house.

This can be used in the name of the children or spouse. A thram owner may divide his property to the people under the old unified thram, separate the census of the family and then a recipient can apply to construct a house on the newly acquired land as he/she has no house.

Necessity is the mother of invention. For us, the urbanites, it is also morally wrong to stop the eager villagers to seek their dreams in the cities and towns. So the best thing now is to realize the realities and plan accordingly.

How can we optimize land use to still keep Bhutan green? The first solution that comes to my mind is the synergy of fruit trees and forests coverage.

Just imagine the Thimphu slopes with orchards of apples, peaches, plums and walnuts instead of pines. The space between the fruit trees can be used to grow vegetables and flowers. To preserve natural trees we can have small zoned wild growth areas separating the orchards.

Besides the economic value to the owners, these orchards will supply fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers to the urban population.

People can get employed to look after the orchards and these are in the proximity of the towns, many will be willing to stay at such farms. It won’t cost much to extend electricity and communication facilities. The health, education and other social facilities will be within walking distances.

Water is a source of worry but we can dig trenches and pits to harvest and store rain waters during the torrential monsoons.

These activities can also mitigate erosion problems caused by swift flow of surface rain water during the rainy season. We can build small tourist resorts in the orchards, where tourists can experience rural lives at the edge of the towns and cities.

We can do the same on the slopes surrounding Punakha-Wangdue valley. Rain harvesting can improve the foliage covers on these barren slopes. Pine trees which hardly have any economic value will disappear, either due to ever increasing forest fire incidents or just illegally cut as source of firewood. Rather, private ownership of orchards will keep the slopes greener as the owners will attempt rain harvesting on these dry slopes.

The government should auction the slopes to entrepreneurs to be developed into orchards. Some may terrace the slopes while others may find more innovative methods.

Rain harvesting technology will see better innovations and regulate river volumes. It is a win-win situation.

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