A tiny country nestled in the Himalayas is giant strides ahead of its peer countries when it comes to the treatment of its citizens and natural environment. Bhutan, the primarily Buddhist country of under 800,000 people, is consistently ranked among the happiest nations in the world. It offers free health care and education to all citizens and measures its success not in Gross National Product but in Gross National happiness.
In a Ted Talk this past February, Bhutan’s prime minister Tshering Tobgay outlined Bhutan’s progressive “Development With Values” mantra, a mission statement that guides their economic and political system. “Economic growth must not come from undermining our unique culture or our pristine environment,” he said.
So far, the country has held true to this idyllic promise. Bhutan is one of the few countries in the world that is carbon negative, meaning that it absorbs more carbon than it emits. In total, the nation’s lush forests take in over 6 million tons of carbon a year, according to Proudly Carbon Neutral. Because it only produces around 1.5 million tons of carbon a year, this creates a 4.5 million-ton deficit of carbon.
Though it is already hailed as one of the greenest countries on Earth, Bhutan shows no plans of stopping now. In fact, the country’s commitment to the environment is written permanently in their constitution. According to Tobgay, the constitution “demands that a minimum of 60% of total land shall remain under forest cover for all time”. Currently, the country has 77% forest cover. Were America to adopt the same policy, over 2.8 million miles2 would be forested, about a million more miles2 than the current forest cover.
Is green forest, then, the secret to Bhutan’s significantly high happiness rating? Maybe, but the country has a lot of other things working in its favor. For one, Bhutanese kings can be impeached by citizens and have a mandatory retirement age of 65. These provisions help insure the country against corruption and power-hungry leaders. Furthermore, the country’s dedication to education and proper health care for all plays a major part in the happiness of their citizens.
Bhutan’s enormous successes as a small, economically-poor country in regards to the environment and gross national happiness have important implications for the upcoming presidential election in the U.S. Perhaps we should focus more on the environment and the well being of the people than the dollar amount in our federal budget.
