International Peace Day, Climate Change, and Bhutan (finally)

This blog has been long in composition because of many duties at work...so I wrote the piece on Spetember 22; today is October 27 and it is no longer warm- though still very mild for this late in the year.  I will post it today....still more to write.
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This past Sunday was the Equinox, and International Peace Day.  Everywhere over the Earth day and night were the same length, and equal.  Interesting that this was also the date chosen for a large international series of marches to mobilize action against climate change.   I chose to mark the day by dancing circle dances with a friend in Mill Creek Ravine.  Our intent was to dance for peace.  The day was also a remarkable 28°C, the warmest I've ever experienced in Canada for September 21, emphasizing the timeliness of a focus on climate change.  Today, the 22, was even warmer, reaching 29°.
Since returning from the International Society of Ethnobiology conference in Bhutan this June, I've intended to write about it, but found it was such an intense and rich and multi-layered experience I couldn't do it.  I needed more time to process the experience before I could write.  I think finally I can approach the topic, with the perspective (and simplification) that comes from distance. Peace and climate change were very much themes of the conference, and indeed, of the country as a whole.  I had never been to mainland Asia before, never (since early childhood in Japan) been in a Buddhist country.  

Prayer flags adorned roadsides, knolls, and passes.  Little shrines at creek crossings housed water-powered prayer wheels, adorned with bright colours and rich symbols.  Every tiny hamlet has a monastery.  Chortens (shrines) are found in many places, commemorating holy people.  Bhutan is a monarchy, now a constitutional one, and the present King and his sister the Princess (who opened our Congress) are both concerned with conservation of biodiversity, sustainable development, and preserving a peaceful and Buddhism based way of life in Bhutan.  The Royal family wanted our society's conference to be held in Bhutan, wanted to make the country's serious focus on protected area creation and biodiversity conservation to be known around the world.  The conference logo featured the Four Friends, and a motto One Earth for All.  Biodiversity conservation, stabilizing the world's climate, and ensuring food self sufficiency and sustainability are matters of concern for all. Challenges for all.
 There is only one international airport in the country, at Paro in the western part of the country near the capital of Thimphu.  Our conference was held in Bumthang, a district in the north-central part of the country.  Though its distance is comparable to that between Edmonton and Calgary, the lateral road is a narrow ribbon of pavement about one city lane wide, snaking along steep hillsides that often slope near vertically above and below the roadway.  Much patient stonework makes even this narrow roadway possible.  The numerous curves and narrow roadbed (along with numerous cows) dictate very slow travel speeds, between about 15 and 25 kilometers per hour once east of the capital at Thimphu.  The slow trek along the Lateral Road from Paro to Bumthang traverses several river systems, a range of vegetation types from dry grass/pine forest with cactus, through mixed deciduous forest, to forests with hemlock, spruce, fir and rhododendron, and going over several passes in excess of 3000m.  Little hamlets and isolated farmsteads dot the country.  Occasional Dzongs (walled fortresses) are seen.  Lower elevation valley slopes are terraced with rice fields.  Bananas are found around Lobeysa, and a wide array of products including several kinds of fern fiddleheads and various wild mushrooms are found in its well stocked market.

fern fiddleheads- several species are eaten in Bhutan

In the high passes, yaks may be spotted.  Some 13 hours after we left Paro, with darkness already fallen, we arrived in Jakar in the district of Bumthang, where our conference was held.  It was amazing, but overwhelming.  Too much for the mind to take in, too much for the body.  At one place early in the day we had to wait for an hour for them to re-excavate the road; the effort to widen it required dumping a mountain slope onto the roadbed before clearing it away. 

the road- temporarily absent

We passed a sign indicating a major hydro development (financed and carried out by Indians) near  Trongsa.  Hydro power is a relatively sustainable export.  The waters falling between the high Tibetan plateau and the plains of East Bengal, tributaries of the Bramaputra, carry a lot of energy.  The precipitous slopes, high monsoon precipitation, and the altitude, limit the extent of potential arable fields in Bhutan, and contribute to high forest cover, and still high forest biodiversity.  Remarkable in Asia.
The conference itself was held at the Ugyen Wangchuk Institute of Conservation in Bumthang.  A lovely venue.  A new hall had to be constructed for plenary sessions; it was completed just before the Congress opened.  Participants from all over the world attended, including a good number of Bhutanese biologists, conservationists and the like.  The conference opened with a banquet after opening speeches by organizers, and Her Royal Highness.  People shared music on the stage.
At the conference, we met in a series of buildings spread out over a sloping campus.  At the bottom, was a monastery school complex.  Above this paths and stone stairways connected the other venues. The Sung room featured non-traditional presentations by community participants.  Other sessions were focussed on more academic topics and formats, though synergies of knowledge and wisdom were sought in all sessions.  Many Indigenous participants from all parts of the world took part.  Benke, from the Brazilian Amazon, with his remarkable feather headdress and hand-spun cotton poncho, stood out among these participants.  Mercedes, from Palawan in the Philippines, a Bri-Bri speaker from Costa Rica, my friend Linda, Kaska, from the Yukon, Octaviana, Yaqui, from Arizona,  and Kealohanuiopuna Kinny, Native Hawai'ian from Hilo, were other  powerful Indigenous speakers and participants.  People spoke from the Heart, from the spirit, about matters that were of deep importance: well being, survival, respect for the Planet, for the rocks, plants, trees, animals, birds, earth and waters, healing, learning, caring for the earth and one another.  People spoke of wrongs endured, wrong paths taken, of resilience, of continuing challenge.  Debra Bird Rose spoke of flying foxes in Australia, a totemic animal closely linked to Aboriginal clans, dying as their fat literally melts in the unprecedented heat climate change has brought to Australia.  Shocking, provoking grief.  Kealoha and his fellow panelists spoke of environmental change and colonial overthrow of legitimate Hawai'ian government, expressing their deep feelings in song.  No one's eye remained dry. Some of us participated in panels on Food Sovereignty, others learned of multi-generational transmission of knowledge in Kirghistan.  We learned about climate change and high altitude environments, changes in grazing and water in the Tibetan Plateau, and the difficulty of hard boundaries (fenced pastoral allotments) with animals that need to be mobile and temporal shifts over spatial distribution of waters and productive pasture; lakes are growing with glacier melt, among other challenges.  We discussed quinoa in South America and traditional knowledge in Europe (yes there is traditional knowledge in Europe). We learned about Bhutanese conservation and protection efforts, and about linkages to sacred space in the Buddhist tradition.
We ate cheese and chili, red rice, buckwheat, and fresh pounded chillie paste with eggs.  We enjoyed fern fiddleheads and spicy mustard greens, and nourishing dahl. We drank milk tea or butter tea. My friend Linda and I tried a traditional Bhutanese spa [remarkable- hot water scented with the common and aromatic Artemesia that was everywhere in the grazed woods around town, laced with special minerals in the quiet and candle lit bath house- calm, meditative, restorative...]We celebrated in the sports field, eating in booths, listening to  music from Bhutan, Brazil and other places.  We shared drink, danced.  We admired the graceful Bhutanese women in their  traditional kiras (a wrapped skirt or jumper) and jackets, and the men, neat and athletic in their traditional gho's.  As part of the King's effort to preserve Bhutanese culture, all those in public service and who meet the public, must wear traditional dress.  At the close of the conference, we returned to the sports field for a biocultural fair and film festival. 

Making buckwheat noodles (photo taken with permission)

Vendors came from different areas of Bhutan, showing and selling traditional products: paper made of daphne (a fibrous barked shrub), hand ground buckwheat noodles, served with chillie and goat's milk, hand loomed raw silk scarves, dyed with natural dyes, wonderful backstrap woven patterned silks for kiras, local incense, of a blend of aromatic resins and barks from the forest following a thousand year old tradition of incense making, good for meditation and prayer.  A troupe did a traditional yak dance.  There were also tents showing films brought by the various Congress participants.  A fullness.

Yak Dancers at biocultural fair

And then- as if there could be more- there were the post Congress trips.  Some of us went home at the close of the Congress, but others shared in new ways as we trekked together, travelling with those from our own inns and guest houses.  So my companions for two of my treks were from Kaila Guest House.  I went on a trek called the Owl Trek, which ascends the ridge between Jakar and the Chhumey Valley.  I think we drove up the valley of Jakar Chu first, then walked up a ridge to a village and monastery, then down to  a suspension bridge and functioning water mill for grinding buckwheat.  After that we followed the pack ponies up a long and steep trail to about 3800m for our first camp in a pasture below the ridge, which had a couple of herder's shelters there in which our guides Sonam and Pema cooked.  We converged with another group which had Karim Ali-Kassan from Cornell and a number of his students, plus Felice Wyndham, an ethnobiologist based in Georgia, and formerly Secretary of the ISE.  Our small group contained Jon Corbett and Mary Stockdale from UBC Okanagan, my friend Linda, and I in addition to our guides and the herder who managed our ponies and mules.

We walked together with the other group all the next day, along the ridge leading to KitiPoo, a peak of about 4000m.  We walked in flower-filled high elevation meadow pastures with clumps of rhododendrons of different species.  I found the going tough at nearly 4000m, and walked slowly, with frequent "air breaks".  The forest edge and the meadow were magnificent.  Sometimes there were wonderful views, but it was the start of the rainy season, and the clouds streamed and settled, shifting, sometimes closing in, sometimes lifting.  Rai, from the forestry department, walked with those of us at the rear, and answered my many questions about plants.  At one point, he called me back: he had spotted a red panda climbing a tree right at the edge of the forest.  I looked with awe and amazement with my binoculars.  Karim's student Muradbak had the presence of mind to take some photos.  Only about five of us had the gift of seeing the panda.  Sometimes being at the rear is a good thing.  Felice and I marveled at black and white and rust birds we didn't know; they seemed bold and aware, corvids from their behaviour, and we later learned they were Eurasian nutcrackers. We camped on the ridge just below the peak of Kitipoo.  I wanted to climb, but didn't think I had enough air to make it.  Others climbed up to the web of poles and prayer flags on the summit, and glimpsed some of the high peaks in the distance. 

In the morning I awoke early, watching the streaming clouds fill the valleys with mist.  It felt like the creation of the world.  Our herders made fires with green juniper boughs and dry branches. After breakfast, we started the return journey, descending first to a large monastery on the slopes of the Chhumey valley, then doubling back to go over a pass and come down through hemlock, then pine forest behind the Congress venue where we connected with our minibuses and finally returned to the Guest Houses.

Monastery Chhumey Valley

The next day we had scheduled another trek, to visit the weavers of the Chhumey Valley.  John and Mary and I went on that trip, but Linda and the others went their separate ways. I'll talk about that trip and weaving in Bhutan in my next blog.
After our Chhumey Valley trip, we returned to Thimphu (me to look at more weaving) and Paro (the others to fly out to Nepal).  I was re-united with my Hungarian friends on the trip out.  Still tiring, but nicer with friends and much excited pointing out of birds discussion of forests, and best of all, encountering a yak herder's camp at the pass leaving Bumthang district.