ISLAMABAD: Bhutan exports more oxygen than it consumes, legally mandates forest cover and calls its citizens trustees of the earth. It is also watching 13.5% of its land degrade.
Officials from the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock confirmed the figure at the country's first national workshop on land degradation earlier this month in Phuentshogling. Agencies gathered in the country’s second-largest city to confront what they described as a crisis cutting across food security, climate resilience and biodiversity.
Soil erosion, unsustainable land use and climate change are the primary drivers, as reported by the Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS). In Wangdue Gatshel, Phuentshogling, a landslide active for several years has left communities stranded on unstable ground. This is a sign, officials said, of how the problem is no longer abstract.
"We need support and data from different agencies, so we met to discuss and work on it," said Tashi Wangdi, Program Director at the National Soil Services Centre. He said national reporting tracks restoration progress, shapes evidence-based policy and attracts financial support for sustainable land management.
The three-day workshop, which drew participants from multiple government agencies, focused on reviewing and revising Bhutan's voluntary land degradation neutrality targets, which are country-level commitments to keep land in productive condition, according to BBS. Tashi Phuntsho, Agriculture Officer of Zhemgang, said groups worked to set new targets and address existing gaps.
Meanwhile, the Water and Wetland Specialist at the Department of Water, said participants came away with clearer understanding of inter-agency data standards and mandates.
The crisis is unfolding inside one of the most legally fortified conservation systems in the world. Article 5 of Bhutan's Constitution requires that no less than 60% of national territory remain permanently forested.
Research from the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization documents how the Constitution designates every Bhutanese citizen a legal trustee of the kingdom's natural resources. The National Environment Protection Act of 2007, as documented by the World Bank, requires Environmental Impact Assessments for all major development projects.
Bhutan pledged permanent carbon neutrality at COP15 in 2009. Its Third Nationally Determined Contribution shows forests sequestering approximately 9.4 million tons of CO2 annually against national emissions of around 3.8 million tons.
The World Bank places 51% of Bhutan's territory within protected areas or biological corridors. Reports from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification confirm that Sustainable Land Management is embedded in Bhutan's five-year national development plans.
The laws have not come without cost. A computable general equilibrium model study, cited by the UN FAO, found that full conversion to organic agriculture could cut crop yields by 24% compared to conventional methods, a gap that has historically contracted GDP and deepened food import dependency.
The World Bank has flagged that conservation restrictions on timber and biomass have narrowed economic diversification. The same institution notes that reliance on hydropower revenues, which fluctuate with climate-driven changes in water flow, is widening the fiscal deficit.
Nowhere is the strain more visible than in Bhutan's organic farming ambitions. The goal of becoming the world's first entirely organic nation, set for 2020, has been pushed to 2035, as reported by BBS.
As of 2021, just 1.09% of farmland carried organic certification, per institutional research, despite nearly two decades of government commitment. Chemical fertilizer imports reached over 4,300 tons in recent periods and the country continues to rely on imported rice for basic food security, as documented by the World Bank.
Labor shortages from rural-to-urban migration, an aging farmer population and the high cost of foreign certification laboratories are stalling progress, per the UN FAO. The government approved the National Agroforestry Strategy for 2026 to 2035 to integrate trees and livestock into farming, reduce external inputs and rebuild soil fertility from within.
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