Bhutan’s shock absorber: 74% forest cover -ToI-21.9.11

Sikkim’s Himalayan Twin Saved By Its Ecology Upkeep
Nirmalya Banerjee TNN

Kolkata: The Himalayan twins couldn’t have thrown up more contrasting pictures — one buried in the brown rubble of devastation, the other with nothing on its thick green skin.
Sunday’s 6.8 earthquake had its epicenter at Mangan, north Sikkim, and caused widespread devastation across the state, but Bhutan — which shares a border with east Sikkim and is barely 150km from Mangan — escaped major loss, thanks to its large forest cover. The country did report a death and injuries to four people but its homes and roads were mostly intact unlike Sikkim, where landslides devoured vast chunks of roads and the death toll touched 41 by Monday afternoon.

Sources in the Bhutanese government said on Monday the sole death in the earthquake was caused by a loose boulder rolling downhill and hitting a woman carrying water home in the upper reaches of Phuentsholling. Four villagers in Haa district bordering Sikkim sustained injuries from roof and wall collapses.
Experts said the impact of the earthquake could have been much worse in Bhutan had it not been for its 74% forest cover. In Sikkim, most deaths were caused by mudslides that wiped out the ground beneath houses and blocked key roads, including the NH-31, in several areas. But in a naturally green Bhutan, forests helped bind the soil together in the hill slopes, preventing mudslides.
In Sikkim, the forest cover was about 48% in 2009, according to a recent report from the Raj Bhavan in Gangtok. In Darjeeling, according to a West Bengal forest department report of 2006-07, the forest cover was about 38%.
There has been a loss of forest cover in Sikkim in recent years because of the ongoing construction of a series of hydel projects on the Teesta and its tributaries, making it more vulnerable to quakes. Assuming the green cover of Darjeeling has stayed the same for over five years, the Queen of the Hills, too, is a sitting duck to a quake.
The proposal for the construction of hydel projects in the Lepcha Reserve in Sikkim’s Dzongu had led to widespread protests from Lepchas because their habitat would be disturbed. The epicenter of the quake, Mangan, isn’t far from the Lepcha Reserve Area, highlighting the concerns of the community. The capital city of Gangtok, too, has witnessed frenetic construction activity over the years.
Hydel projects are being constructed in Bhutan, too, but steps have been taken to complete the projects early so that forest cover can be restored in these areas to prevent damage to the ecology, officials said. In Sikkim and Darjeeling, on the other hand, the construction work of some of the projects has been going on for years, leading to a loose top soil and increased vulnerability to a natural calamity like a landslide, or worse, an earthquake.