Environmental research

No cash financing in this Project The PADMA Fellowship is a religious and non- profit foundation with its principal office established in Thimphu, Bhutan under the patronage of H.H Jamyang Khentse Rinpoche. While this foundation aspires to become a well-endowed and dynamic religious organization that will operate for the development and sustainable management of Bartsam Chador Lhakhang and to preserve, protect and propagate the Buddha dharma in Bhutan and around the world, it also aims to work with the local communities in realizing and operationalzing the goals of Gross National Happiness of Bhutanese development Philosophy. In doing so, this foundation will strive vigorously in promoting and conservation of Buddha Dharma and maintain/sustain Chador Lhakhang and support its Shedra, Anims and Drupdey in Trashing Bartsam. This foundation is a supporting system of Lhakhang and the dharma practitioners. Today, this monastery provides free boarding and hostel facilities to over 850 monks especially those coming from economically challenged family background. The monks are enrolled in Lhobda (pre primary school), Sherda (higher learning), Drubda (retreats) and Dratsang, (monastic residents). Further, this monastic community continues to plays fundamental role in serving the local communities through various local pujas, birth and death rituals, and annual pujas thus keeping the web of community network very closely knit. While managing this institute, we have realized that the demand for usage of firewood in daily cooking and performance of mandatory yearly ritual is alarmingly high. The table below shows the daily firewood consumption by our monastery alone. Sl. No. Activity Firewood consumption (cubic meter) 1 Breakfast preparation 2 2 10 O clock tea preparation 1 3 Lunch preparation 4 4 Evening tea preparation 1 5 Dinner preparation 4 Total 12 cubic meter daily * 12 cubic meter is equal to a truck load, which is around 3 medium sized standing trees as per the calculation of field level foresters In addition celebrations of annual Pujas, Tshechus and Drupchens consume additional firewood. This current pattern of firewood consumption is not only threatening our fragile environment but it is getting very expensive to manage the monastery due to the cost escalation of firewood and transportation. This trend of firewood consumption surely poses challenges in conserving our environment thus staking one of the four pillars of GNH and the goal of conserving 60% forest coverage in Bhutan. It also imposes burden for the local communities for having to contribute firewood to the monastery, which takes away time from the local communities from farming, and other household chores. Therefore, the committee of the PADMA Fellowship firmly believes that the introduction of improved stoves, solar geysers and rice cooker will greatly contribute to the preservation of our environment and improvement of health and sanitation of children enrolled in Bartsam Chhador Lhakhang. From the good practices, we hope to replicate to other monasteries around the country. With these objectives, the PADMA Fellowship has been formed by experienced people from diverse background. Since the members of this foundation come from strong academic and project implementation background, they are all equipped with adequate project management and implementation skills.

Bhutan