UN Headquarters, New York City, August 10, 2005

On April 12, 2005, The UN Environment Programme Executive Director, Mr. Klaus Toepfer, named the 2005 “Seven Champions of the Earth”. At the top of that list were “The King and the People of Bhutan” - represented at the New York, delegates dinning room ceremony by Mr. Daw Penjo. the Permanent Representative of Bhutan to the United Nations. The reason given for the award for the Asian-Pacific Region, to the King of Bhutan and its people, was in recognition of their country’s “commitment to placing the environment at the centre of its draft constitution and all its development plans”.

The judges praised Bhutan’s “excellent environmental track record, with more than 74 per cent of its land under forest cover, and 26 percent of this cover designated as protected areas”. Further, Mr. Toepfer noted: “the country’s legislation and policies that ensure the sustainable use of resources, promote community involvement in environmental activities, improve land use planning, and integrate traditional with modern natural resource use practices”; Mr. Toepfer also mentioned the concept developed in Bhutan of GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS as a mainstay in the development area - it is this rather then the conventional Gross National Product.

People should rather be happy than go out all the way to create a consumer society.

I got intrigued about the concept of the GNH and decided to pursue this topic further.

It turns out that Gross National Happiness was declared to be the guiding philosophy of Bhutan’s development process by King Jigme Sinye Wangchuck soon after his enthronement already in 1972. According to Mr. Jigmi Y. Thinley, the present Minister of Home and Cultural Affairs, and a former Foreign Minister: “Our King was clear that happiness is the ultimate end desired … all else for which we labor are but means to fulfilling this wish. Yet it is ironic that human society is pervasively susceptible to confusion between this simple end and the complexity of means. This explains why conventional development, or the economic growth paradigm, is seriously flawed and delusional … GNH stands for the holistic needs of the human individual - both physical and mental well being … it is His Majesty’s belief that legitimacy of a government must be established on the basis of its commitment to creating and facilitating the development of those conditions that will make viable the endeavors of citizens in pursuit of their single most important goal and purpose in life.” Indeed, Mr. Thinley observes that the manifold rise in real income in several highly industrialized countries over the last 50 years has not led to similar increases in happiness - it is evident that triumphs in the rat race to earn more, have more, and consume more, do not bring true and lasting happiness. It is ironic that longer life spans afforded by science and medicine should serve now to prolong the pains of loneliness and desolation.

Bhutan has opted for the creation of an enabling environment for GNH through a four pillars strategy:

(1) Sustainable and equitable socioeconomic development, (2) Conservation of environment, (3) Preservation and promotion of culture and (4) Promotion of good governance.

The Center for Bhutan Studies, P.O.Box 1111, Lanjophaka, Thimphu, Bhutan, is seemingly the repository of the above ideas see - www.bhutanstudies.org.bt

In April 1987, the Financial Times published an article by Lyonpo Jigmi’s on GNH.Then in 1997, as part of the 25 years jubilee of the coronation of the King the subject was picked up again leading to a series of meetings. First at a Seoul conference, October 1998 organized by UNDP (Asia-Pacific), then a one day workshop in Thimphu, capital of Bhutan, and eventually the first international conference in Thimphu in 2004.

Following the coronation jubilee of 1997, the Centre for Bhutan studies released a volume of discussion papers that was published in 1999. The papers were used in the other deliberations but do not express just the position of the King.

GNH, has been picked up by philosophers and psychiatrists in the West, and June 2005 a large event was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, the 2nd International Conference on GNH. Even British Prime Minister, Tony Blair got involved in talking of the pursuit of happiness, as analyzed by Michael Johnson in the international Herald Tribune, March 15, 2005, that mentions that this concept is already enshrined in the US Constitution right after life and liberty.

We shall return to the concept as we find it an additional fundamental base for the concept of sustainable development - the only development scheme that makes any sense. Also we will have a further look at the draft Constitution for Bhutan that was mentioned by Mr. Toepfer when making the awards.