No more carrot, no more stick
Jigme Dorji National Park 4 August, 2009 - With
biodiversity preservation a government priority, communities living
within the 4,349 sq km Jigme Dorji national park face severe
restrictions on forest resource use.
In the past, park
residents said little about the restrictions, because of ongoing
development-related conservation programmes, which benefited them.
Mule tracks were widened, solar lighting sets and yak breeding bulls were provided and feeder roads built in the five western dzongkhags of Gasa, Wangduephodrang, Thimphu, Paro and Punakha, that fall under the park.
This development work was carried out with funding from Bhutan Trust Fund for environment conservation (BTFEC), United Nation development program (UNDP), and the sustainable development secretariat (SDS), Netherlands.
With BTFEC support, the park widened trails, constructed feeder roads, supported construction of school buildings and erected signboards at the park entry points from 1995 to 1997. From 1997 to 2002, UNDP funded strengthening the park’s integrated management to address threats to biodiversity conservation and remove their causes by implementing certain project components and other issues, such as poaching, eco-tourism and enforcement of legal systems. The five-year project supplied solar lighting sets, yak-breeding bulls and maintained mule tracks.
But, in the past three years, all such development activities have come to a dead end, frustrating communities living within the park.
“All the activities have stopped and we’re deprived of forest resources and there are lots of do’s and don’ts,” said a Laya resident. “It feels like the park introduced the developmental activities just to make us happy and impose the restrictions.”
The officiating park manager in Damji, Sonam Zangpo, said the park did not have funds to carry out development activities as in the past.
The head of the nature conservation division’s integrated conservation development programme (ICDP), Sonam Choden, said that there were no ICDP-related projects in any parks, since the budget had been exhausted. “We’re exploring funds,” she said. “But future funds will be used to address human-wildlife conflict, which is a priority issue, not on any other activities.”
