Himalayas
There is a growing global awareness that land degradation is as much a threat to environmental well–being as more obvious forms of damage, such as air and water pollution (e.g. Greenland & Szalbocs, 1994; Conacher, 2001). Although the source of land degradation is usually local, its effects often stretch for considerable distances from the source site. It can impact large areas and...
The concept of physiography integrates all of the main components of the natural environment, such as bedrock, surface drift deposits, landform, soils, climate, water, and plants and animals. This paper summarises the provisional physiographic zonation of Bhutan, based on soil survey fieldwork by the National Soil Services Centre, with some material incorporated from other environmental...
The underlying development philosophy of globalisation seeks to maximise happiness through the cultivation of a narrow materialist self-interest and competitiveness, both at the level of the individual and at the level of the nation-state. Despite voluminous evidence that this growth-fixated model of material economy polarises global well-being and seriously undermines environmental security,...
‘Vulnerability’ best sums up the plight of small states in any discourse on security. Many size factors interplay to entangle most small states in a network of insecurities, and smallness has seldom been beautiful. Small states have often been the ‘objects of conquest’ in the big powers’ scramble for dominion during the colonial and cold war periods. They have...
A study was conducted to look at the relationship between presence and numbers of wild dog (Cuon alpinus) and presence and abundance of wild boar (Sus scrofa). This was corroborated with scat analysis to get percentage of the prey consumed by wild dogs and other predators. A preliminary nationwide presence-absence survey of C. alpinus population showed that with the exception of Trashigang,...
This paper is the results of a Soil Fertility Management (SFM) survey conducted in 1999 to determine the status and trends in soil fertility management and associated soil conditions in Bhutan in the face socio-economic development of the last four decades. While the traditional SFM systems based on the use of animal manures still dominate, the ability to maintain and sustain these indigenous...
The Kingdom of Bhutan is often described as being physically small with limited economic scope and military might. In spite of these limitations, Bhutan has earned the reputation of being a peaceful country where the development of threats from militancy, terrorism, and economic disparity within itself has virtually been absent. In this sense, Bhutan has thus far been more fortunate than many...
Poverty cries out for attention, so powerfully and so insistently, that to ignore it would seem unthinkable. And indeed, poverty alleviation figures prominently on virtually every governmental, non-governmental, and intergovernmental agenda. But in spite of this, poverty persists, and, depending on which measures are used, can be documented as both spreading and deepening.
The generic...
The relationship between religion and the state has remained a perennial issue of the Tibetan cultural presence since the 7th century. The question is how the definition and actuality of that relationship evolved over fourteen centuries, both
theoretically and in the practical implementation of governing structures. On what moral or normative religious grounds have the various Tibetan...
In traditional times, Ura was the south-easternmost of the districts of central Bhutan called Bum-thang sDe-bzhi – ‘the Four Districts of Bumthang.’ Within the district are found some of the oldest datable Bhutanese monasteries such as Sombrang, connected to the Drigung Kagyudpa subsect of the Lhapa, constructed ca. 1230 AD by the Smyos Lama named Demchog (1179-1265).
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