Bhutan for Life · The Greatest Conservation Story Never Told

Bhutan is facing a threshold. Low economic agriculture diversification is causing risk and vulnerability and youth unemployment. Given the natural scale of conservation policies and areas, while agroforestry practices are growing integrating trees, forage, and the grazing of domesticated animals; there is an increasing demand for land, and human-wildlife conflict is swelling and currently Bhutan faces several challenges to have adequate interventions to help rural residents mitigate it in a responsible and conservation friendly way.

Bhutan is also experiencing increased poaching and the country’s current enforcement capacity is unable to effectively tackle it. Because of Bhutan’s geographical location, Illegal wildlife trade will become a serious concern for wildlife conservation in the coming years.

Bhutan’s altitude map. The country’s average altitude is 3.200 mts. While the Drangme Chhu valley drops to 97 metres below sea level, the summit of Gangkhar Puensum is 7,570m above it.

Bhutan has built a strong alliance with WWF to create Bhutan For Life, a financing mechanism to keep this small, little-known country in the distant Himalayas a conservation treasure.

With the support of the European Union, OIKO worked closely with Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Bhutan to critically review the Renewable and Natural Resources (RNR) sector to support sustainable agriculture and sustainable forest management in Bhutan.

OIKO produced an evaluation report highlighting objectives, progress and sustainability results achieved, and proposed an action plan for sustainability and climate readiness during the implementation of the RNR.