White Gold: Discovering Bhutan's natural treasure

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] is [Music] on our approach baton emerges through the clouds the snow-capped himalayas pierce the sky above as our plane weaves its way through the lush green valleys for a welcome to landing ladies and gentlemen we have now arrived at baro international airport please keep your mobile phones switched off and remain seated with your celebrity nestled at the top of the world between china and india bhutan is the last himalayan buddhist kingdom the kingdom of the thunder dragon it's a remote country by geography and a secluded nation by choice intent on preserving its own identity you might know it as the country that measures its development by happiness the world's happiest asian nation in the early 1970s their beloved king at the time declared that gross national happiness is more important than gross national product he made it clear that bhutan will only develop at a pace that made their citizens happy their own pace and their own terms there are no fast food chains no smoking and limits on mass tourism the first road was only paved in 1961 the year i was born and in 1999 they were the last nation in the world to embrace television and they are still managing without a single traffic light in the entire country it's a nation at a crossroad embracing its past deciding its future while fiercely defending its heritage but that's not why i'm here it's bhutan's relationship with what they call white gold water this landlocked nation's relationship with water has made the bhutanese into being one of the most environmentally progressive nations in the world and it's reflected in their passion i feel that climate change is really happening and then i can see the real living example says global warming is really an uh definitely a man made including those of bhutan's first class of law students each and every one of us can work for that you know we just have to clear our mindset and make it very clear that you know individual we can take up a step to receiving our nature saving our environment sandwiched between the world's worst and third worst carbon emitters the bhutanese are forced to live in a very real precipice of climate change [Music] this man is bhutan's prime minister prime minister it's it's popular from abc out of new york chairing top gay prime minister of the kingdom of bhutan and invite him to address the general assembly we have ratified the paris agreement and we are well on our way to fulfilling our pledges 72 of our country is under forest cover and more than half our country is protected as national parks wildlife sanctuaries and nature reserves what this means is that we are the world's only carbon neutral country in fact we are a carbon negative country bhutan is a carbon sink it absorbs three times more carbon than it emits but even that hardly offsets the emissions of its neighbors they can only try to lead by example as a landlocked mountainous country we are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change and that's why we are particularly alarmed at unchecked environmental degradation the root cause of climate change those same peaks that welcomed us and framed their beautiful country are also like a sword hanging over their head bhutan is part of what is called the third pole better known as the tibetan plateau the roof of the world it's the source of no less than 10 river systems across asia and a fresh water source for 1.3 billion people and like the other two poles to the north and south the ice is melting a 2012 american geophysical union study showed that if the average temperature in bhutan continues to rise just one degree celsius a quarter of bhutan's glaciers would eventually melt away today the melting glaciers are already filling 2600 glacial lakes to the brim so you've seen the water is the water higher yeah definitely there's more floods everywhere it's flash flood landslides people being washed away in 1994 a glacier lake burst unleashing a sudden torrent downstream it became one of the worst natural disasters bhutan has ever seen and the bhutanese are afraid it will happen again we already experienced flash floods glacial lake outbursts and severe and erratic weather patterns the effects of which can be particularly devastating for a poor country but we will not give up we will take action today there are 25 glacial lakes in danger of bursting one of the most dangerous glacier lakes is totormi which lies adjacent to the one that burst in 1994. the glacier feeding the lake has been receding at a rate of 250 feet every year if totorumi's natural barrier bursts it will almost instantly unleash 14 trillion gallons of water into the river valleys below a tsunami from the sky and in its path down the male river the old bhutanese seat of power bunaka and its historic fortress morning grew up next to the river your mom has prepared some rice along with the potato curry and father wants to eat some more on chili cheese some teas are coming up again so small kitchen yeah so we always like the bottom line believing that all the sentient beings to rest in peace with those who are gone and those who are still alive to live longer and to be peaceful every day so every morning yes so you so you drew though you painted this basang loved the water even as a young boy is that the river there no people say like that what all to the iraq is all similar you know water to the baton oil is to arrive yeah the water is still yeah so during 1994 we will find uh we have a huge blood at the male river due to our birth of glacier day my father was uh here he was doing some he was doing his duty out here actually he was driving a police backup he was a driver for police he's the chief of police you see you saved people who are actually like that at that time our many prisoners in gaza are staying nearby male river at that time we rushed from temple to here to rescue them did your family fall in love with the river growing up no no they don't they never even go to the room really while most bhutanese respect their fast flowing rivers many keep their distance fearing that they will be swept away yeah my two friends died even when you were little so like they were they they pretended they went wrong which makes basan's career choice even more surprising he is a river guy his future is linked with the water now this is the river oh yeah the bank of the river are being eroded so now they are first constructing these kinds of walls so that they can protect the very corner of the banks of the river what do they do this yeah is this after the shortly after 1994 yes sir after how wide was this back then compared to now now it is much more double of the size of the river twice as wide as it was before because of that 1994. yes do you think global warming is uh man-made i surely say that global warming is a man-made thing you're not a doubter no i don't have any dog you live amongst it nice to meet you how are you doing how was it out there yo awesome yeah my guest yeah are you seeing a change in the water because the the glaciers are melting faster every day the river line changes every year is increasing that's why sometimes you can see so if river increases this uh this much dco it will increase more than that really just keeps going higher and higher yeah it keeps on increasing you have to change the way you you wrap so how we hit the rapid so we don't concern but we're concerned how we come out from the racket the trees which are planted aside of the rivers all are falling and they are being brought by the trees are getting washed into this into the into the river uh so that makes it a little more dangerous yeah of course you know this river more than anybody else you grow you grew up right here on it yeah i know each and every waves of this river yeah but you'll be able to raft this river for the rest of your life you just have to change the way that you do it yeah of course the river is like mother for me like more like my mother it fits me so that's why every time it changes i wonder why [Music] water keeper also traveling in bhutan is the waterkeeper alliance a us-based advocate for clean water and free-flowing rivers they are in the country to recruit locals to protect the rivers nobody's doing anything we don't do anything so there's no responsibility from the government the river guides are their best candidates [Music] we're here to help the local people the local people know what's wrong they are experiencing the problems and and they're trying their best to speak up we have people on the front lines of climate change who have done no harm to this world yet they're suffering all the harm from the rest of the world [Music] the glacial waters from the tottormi empty into the mighty fast-flowing poacher the male river that churning white water is bhutan's white gold the only way to feel its power is to ride it with the professionals what's the is this class three class three and fourth class so we're gonna go out here with uh both water keeper people from from the us and also the locals will show us how to take the uh the rapids as well yes and you know you are the people who are closest to the river the water keepers introduce us to kinley dorji a river guide an activist they are trying to recruit how far how far is the glacier from here and they see the destruction happening to the rivers of bhutan and kinley and others like him are very concerned about all the damning that's happening it's happening at a very rapid pace and we need to make sure that it's uh it's done carefully of course yeah okay so today we are going to do battle rafting so it's all about two balls and paul lee and four here right back left forward one [Music] this is why it's valuable the bhutanese government wants to harness this power with a network of hydroelectric plants all right so i think a lot rougher than we thought in some ways the glaciers getting warmer and melting faster is good for your business good for us but it's bad for the development power plants do you like those or hate those they're somewhere in the middle well i would say we kind of like hate the hydropowers because all the good rivers have been jammed so far now but in another hand you know it's the highest budget of bhutan so you cannot say anything it's making your country some money yeah one way it is the main economic uh incentive for the country and in other way i think it's challenging also to damp all the rivers they try to damp the river in eco-friendly manner but but of course in other way we are damaging environment but they are trying to make a set of eco-friendly [Music] dams at the panaka fortress the male river merges with a female river to form the mighty punetsang true where two dams are being built another bhutanese water keeper is less equivocal about his opposition [Music] toby takes us downstream to one of the country's major hydropower projects called puna sanchu one to see the impact of the construction for ourselves as we approach the scenery changes this in large part is how bhutan is planning to stay carbon neutral build enough dams harness their melting glaciers and mitigate their country's climate impact the government has jumped all in into hydropower at the expense of their mighty rivers bhutan is very supportive of the building of these dams and these turbines so they can create electricity then they export out to other countries largely india for money it's the it's the biggest income for this country so this is where they're now building the what will be the permanent dam essentially blocked off the water and a temporary dam up there to block the river eventually it's gonna flow down here go through the wall and then into a turbine where they're gonna get all their energy from india yeah it seems like most of the workers here are from india what are you doing with this this is the just we are widening that outdoor day because you have to widen the road okay you know what it is toby you look this way and you get to see beauty and you look this way you got construction in the modern world right do you want any dams at all yeah yeah i am of the view that there should be some uh electricity that generates revenue for the government but it should not be all the rivers you know some rivers should be kept free what about this river this river's already screwed you know there's two dams on it might as well utilize it now you know your opposition to it is it because it destroys the beauty of the country the natural beauty of bhutan or is it does it create pollution kill fish what is the the reason for it for you it is not natural it's just not natural i'm a white water enthusiast and i like rivers look down at the valley today there's no river if you if you've thought about it like what percentage of the people in this country are against the dams as opposed to for the dams i think 90 of the people have no clue about the dams the negative impact or the positive impact they really don't get it and they don't know there's a 10 10 that uh are fighting over this so you're saying they're kind of brainwashed yeah it's everybody it's like you know on the media all the time you know how much money hydropower is going to bring in and how good it is you know and once we have the dams you know then we don't have to work you know it's going to bring in so much money the prime minister is very much in favor of it and he likes the idea in addition we generate and export clean renewable energy and invest in green industry maybe he sees it as a a resource that for the in the future but again that's what are we losing for that uh resource you know so you think that we could we can stop this from happening i don't think we can stop this from happening but i think we can mitigate and leave some of the rivers the whole thing is to piece it you know and then you do one project at a time and look at the impact and carry on but what we have done is we've jumped in with both our feets you know and now there's no going back we have like five or six projects going on at the same time this project is just one of five projects under construction right now with at least another 10 in various stages of development in 2016 hydropower represented nearly 37 of bhutan's exports and eight percent of its gdp [Music] the asian development bank forecast the bhutan's growth will hit eight percent this year buoyed by this construction and hydropower exports they become the fastest growing economy in south asia maybe here on this corner yeah the bhutanese government claims they have only tapped five percent of their hydropower potential so this is where it comes out turns to a beautiful free flow again so this is what it used to look like yes the way it is right down there once it gets through it looks beautiful yeah but but the question is are they building too many too quickly too many there certainly is some opposition to these dams but it is very minimal i think toby is certainly a minority in in the sense that he's one of the few that's fighting this are you are you for or against the dams being put in hey i am i'm i'm for the motion sir again it's it's helping most of the buddhist people out here so due to the construction of that hydro project again command has promised within 2020 whole the bhutan av each and every corner will be lighter we don't want to damp at least let's not damn one river in bhutan we must have it without damping from from the end to the top to the glacier solar free flow free flow it's a chat but it's on the way to make it one at least we are fighting for that and hop hope that a minor of other friends uh dreams come true i'd say most say that they did not have this kind of hydropower they would not have enough money to support an independent country without too much polluting factories and development so this is in most mines it is a hope that this will make this country independent and clean and green now many say listen you're running out of time we've got to do it quickly and that is the debate look at this place if the temperatures continue to rise and the glaciers disappear so too with the water source for these river guides farmers and the hydro power plants this water it turns out can eventually run dry back in the rapidly growing capital of temple [Music] as the outside world further encroaches the stress of development can clearly be seen a generation of bhutanese are trying to push the conversation forward that their environment is essential the u.s we've pulled out of the uh the paris agreement so oh yeah they pulled out but then i think our government is sticking with that whatever was discussed in the paris and they'll go ahead with whatever the other countries do what are the people of bhutan generally think about the united states pulling out of the paris agreement they're actually not happy because they know how important the environment is and from through that how much it has benefited us this shocks me some [Music] to bring awareness to a growing waste and pollution problem in bhutan out of sight is out of mind yeah yeah so what we do is we throw it in the stream it washes off into the river you never see it and then you never see and it's out of your mind [Music] put it up and now people are like looking at it and it it gives a little bit of what you call new approach a superstar so famous [Music] and others like cheku a radio anchor for bhutan broadcasting service spreads the message on his shows back to the english service of the dbs radio you're still listening to 88.193 and 96 and also we are and following the recent incident of bear attack it is the most reliable source of news and information for them to to those people in the rural areas so that's why i mean whatever we broadcast from here whatever you throw it will come back to you so mind you starting from a psa to songs to the programs they listen from a to z and waiting in the wings the first class of homegrown environmental lawyers at the country's first law school i know we can cause the biggest impact in this world if we have the sense of responsibility and gratitude this is what every nation every nation in the other countries have and this is also what bhutan should have congratulations top 25 students the bhutanese have seen the world change on the outside they have seen it firsthand from their polluted neighbors and how that change threatens the very roof over their heads and even the white gold that sustains their country now it's up to them how that same change comes to their home oh my goodness most of my adult life i have wanted to come to bhutan are we here right now or is this some kind of a movie [Music] most of the people we talk to even those who have lived and regularly traveled abroad expressed their luck and being born into this pristine conference bhutan is not a country living in the past but rather a country that is fighting for its future to still look like this [Music] do you see anything else around here hi there hi you know you want to see yourself ready okay there you are who's that who's that it's the first time you saw your sleep on tape huh [Laughter] yep that's right that's right cameras bring peace you want to see it this way you want to shoot me here there now you can shoot me look at you there you go what do you think oh yeah there's me good job go interview your mom go shoot your mom but you're gonna get a job though as a cameraman for abc high five good job okay [Music] high five he wants your camera now

Channel: ABC News

Views: 575,860

Keywords: white gold, Bhutan, Bob Woodruff, climate change, environment, mountains, water, global warming, world, documentary, ABC News, abc news features, resources, waterfall

Id: QTYdqtaMSOI

Length: 31min 58sec (1918 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 26 2018