Being more like the Kingdom of Bhutan

I like to look at how other countries and how they have taken on the challenge of looking after their environment.  It seems all the more important now that Britain has voted to 'stand alone' in the EU Referendum and we may have to determine our own environmental policies to protect our natural world and fight climate change as a whole. 

One of the countries I have been most interested in has been the Kingdom of Bhutan. Bhutan is a relatively small country nestled in between India and China, with a population of only around 750,000, a GDP of just 1.78 billion USD, and is still classified as a 'least developed country'. You would expect then they would be racing to catch up with the Western world (the apparent benchmark everyone aspires to), destroying all their natural resources and greatly increasing their carbon footprint in the process. But they haven't. Instead they have taken a very different route.


Firstly, one of the most obvious things is that they have chosen to rule their progress not by the western GDP (Gross Domestic Produce) but by GNH (Gross National Happiness), apparently based on the Buddhist spiritual values.  First coined in 1972, this may appear to have nothing to do with being environmentally friendly, the four pillars of GNH are:

• Sustainable development
• Preservation and promotion of cultural values
• Conservation of the natural environment
• Establishment of good governance

This not only puts sustainability and conservation at the heart of anything they do, but also removes money as the only goal to aim for.

Since then Bhutan has signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 and produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan which has lead to them being viewed as a model for proactive conservation initiatives.  In this strategy they have promised to maintain at least 60% of their land under forest cover, designate more than 40% territory as national parks, reserves, and other protected areas, and, most recently, identify a further 9% of land as biodiversity corridors linking these protected areas allowing migration throughout the country.  They have also implemented an insurance scheme and set up solar powered alarm fences, watchtowers and search lights to protect crops and livestock, as well as providing food and salt licks outside of human settlements to reduce conflict between humans and protected wildlife.  The Bhutan Government has made it clear that, while their natural heritage is largely intact, it cannot be taken for granted and conserving it must be one of the challenges to be addressed in years to come.

This protection of their wildlife has meant that the Kingdom of Bhutan currently has the net greenhouse gas emission of zero, with the small amount of pollution they produce being absorbed by the forests covering Bhutan.  On top of this, they have also implemented a number of (to us) progressive environmental policies, such as promoting the purchase of electric cars and ensuring that most of their energy is obtained from hydroelectric, which will ensure that their carbon footprint will always remain relatively low.

Perhaps the most striking difference between the Bhutan government's attitude to environmental conservation against the UK's is that it has not been treated as a separate sector, that is usually ignored, but has been placed at the core of the nation's development strategy and can be found as a running theme throughout all the sections of Government.

Now I'm not saying the Kingdom of Bhutan is perfect (there was the forced expulsion of the ethnic minority group of Hindu Lhotshampa), but their treatment and attitude towards the natural world is definitely something we can learn from.

Incidentally, I thought I would add another video here that will show you how measuring GDP alone will not necessarily help a nation develop into a happy, healthy, and sustainable nation.

The EU Referendum - from the environmental point of view

So in one more day those of us living in the UK will need to vote whether or not we want to stay in the EU.  Over the last few weeks we have heard a lot about immigration, money and jobs, but pretty much nothing about the one thing that will have the largest effect on our lives - the environment.

I've been scouring the internet for any information I can find on how either outcome would affect the environment and wildlife in the UK and the planet as a whole, and I thought I would write a quick blog on which websites I found most useful in making my decision.  (I did think about writing my own opinions on this but these sites are much better written and give you a much more rounded view).

My favourite site by far has been The Wildlife Trust's 'The EU Referendum and Wildlife'. This site covers the EU laws and funding that affects wildlife and the environment now, case studies, and (the part I found most interesting) have published the report commissioned by The Wildlife Trust, WWF, and RSPB from the Institute of European Environmental Policy about the possible outcome of the EU referendum.

The next in another report I'm afraid, this time by The UK in a Changing Europe on The EU Referendum and the UK Environment.  This is quite a dry report, but is factual and to the point without much emotion, allowing you to make a more informed decision.

The last site I'm going to talk about is actually Friends of the Earth (a site I actually don't spend that much time on).  More specifically two reports they have published: The Implications of UK Environmental Policy of a Vote to Exit the EU and The EU Referendum and the Environment.  These reports do lean more on the stay side of things, but still look at all areas and I actually found them quite informative on all viewpoints.  Their web-page covers everything from bees to air quality, energy to fishing.  

At the end of the day what you vote depends on who hands our environment is most safe in, the UK on it's own or the EU as a whole.

Mini Film Review: Billions in Change

The next film I want to write a little review about is Billions in Change (and this movie you can actually get free on YouTube).  It's about the Manoj Bhargava, who invented 5-hour ENERGY, and what he's done with the money he has made selling this product.

We're so used to, now, watching people make money for nothing and then basically spending it on themselves.  But this isn't the case with Manoj Bhargava who doesn't see the point on spending his money on 'stuff' and has instead decided to put it towards something a little more useful.  Manoj is putting 99% of his projects into the funding inventions which will help fix the world issues of water, energy, and health care.  He is genuinely excited by these inventions and what they could do for a planet as a whole.

It's a good reminder of what one person can do if they choose to.  I know in this case Manoj has a lot of money to give, but even the littlest actions by someone can help make a difference.  It's also great to see someone using their money for something other than just buying stuff for themselves and how genuinely happy this has made him.

You can watch the full movie here.

App of the Moment: Vegetarian Society

I have to admit that I didn't find becoming a vegetarian very difficult.  I was already eating a predominantly plant based diet and never thought that meat was particularly amazing.  I'm also one of those people that would happily just cut up a whole load of vegetables, chuck them in a frying pan and just eat them like that.  But when I moved in with my partner last year I had to become a little 'adventurous'.  He was kind enough to agree to eat vegetarian at dinner time, but it did need to be a little bit more varied and like a traditional meal.  To begin with I used (and still do) the Quorn recipe book, which is a great book for converting traditional meat meals into vegetarian ones, but we have been wanting some more variety and for that I've been turning to the Vegetarian Society app.

This app is unbelievably easy to use.  You can click tab on Search to get all of the recipes or if there is a specific ingredients or food type (ie tacos or sushi) then you can type it into the Enter keyword/s box and click on search.  But I'm not usually able to be that exact and tend to do more 'in the ballpark' type searching using the menus by tapping on the 'All' sections beside each title.  Meal type is whether it's a starter, main, soup, etc; Diet is whether you have any dietary requirements such as vegan, gluten free, nut free, etc; Preparation type is based on your cooking abilities and covers simple, moderate, gourmet, and recipes for caterers; Occasions is if it's for a specific occasion such as Christmas or Burns night (we are in Scotland after all); and lastly Cuisines is the usual Indian, Chinese, Italian, American, etc.

As I'm trying to transition into a more vegan diet I use the Diet section most to select all the Vegan recipes the app has.

What you get after your selection or search is a list of all the recipes available on the app for that request.  The best thing about the list provided is the fact that you can also see whether the recipes are vegan, egg free, gluten free, wheat free, nut free, and low in flat.

Once you click on the recipe the first page with give you an Overview about the recipe, how many it will serve, and the preparation time.  You can then tap on the Ingredients and the Method for the recipe.  You can also tap on Save at the bottom of the page which then saves it to your My recipes.  You can get to this directly from the front page next time you open the app.

You can get this app for free from the Vegetarian Society's website (oh and this is not a sponsored post, I just like the app).

Happy eating!

June The Vegan Kind subscription box

So another lovely The Vegan Kind vegan, lifestyle box came to my door again at the beginning of this week and I wasted no time in opening it to see what we had this time.

To begin with is the usual sheet letting you know about the guest recipe contributor is, information about the charity that The Vegan Kind supports (which is Teen VGN's Vegan Summer Camp, and details about the products in box.

The recipe this time is a Creamy Avocado Pesto Pasta by Fettle Vegan, run by Amber who produces plant-based recipes.  I love avocado's and I love pesto so this is right up my alley and I've already added it to my list of menus for next week to test out.  The biggest test will be whether or not my partner, Jim, likes it.

The first thing I saw (and the first thing I ripped into before even taking a photo) was the Hoots Cheese and Onion Multigrain Snack.  This was really nice, not too cheesy or strong, and I really liked how crunchy it was.  I also liked the fact that Hoots is now removing animal products from their food.  Jim liked them too and actually took the pack out of my hand.

The next product I tried was the GranoVita Vegetable Pate. I spread it on some toast to try it and while it reminded me of a meat based pate I had at school years ago it wasn't something that I was particularly keen on.  It was salty tasting to me (it has sea salt added to it) and I'm not a fan of salty food, but if you do like slightly salty food then you should try this.

The next product I pulled out was the Good Full Stop Chocolate and Orange Bar which is a chocolate and orange fruit and nut bar.  It definitely tasted of orange chocolates and which quite easy to eat on that front.  The texture was squiggy though, I prefer my snacks to be crunchy.

I actually took the Foods of Athenry Chocolate and Raspberry Cookie with me when Jim and me went to Lunan Bay (East Scotland).  This we really liked.  It's not a chewy as usually cookies are, which we actually thought was a good thing, and the flavours were not too overpowering.  All and all this one was definitely a success and I will definitely be looking out for these when I'm having a cookie monster moment.

This was the last food product I pulled out, and actually the one I was most interested in, was the Smooze Fruit Ice.  I have a real ice-cream addition.  Not chocolate, not cakes, and not biscuits, but ice-cream.  Normally when it kicks in, and I give in, I get a big tub of Cookies and Cream which I finish completely.  What I'm hoping will happen is that this might be able to replace that as a smaller, vegan version of this to help with the cravings so I don't fall of the wagon.  Mango was the perfect one to get as it's a fruit I love and this was a really nice product.  I'm not sure it's exactly the same of the Cookies and Cream, but I think I will be able to use this as a substitute while I deal with this addition.

For me the best part of this box is the non-food products and this one was the Green People Sun Lotion.  I am a fan of Green People and have purchased and enjoyed their products in the past (specifically their sunscreen), so I was really pleased to receive this.  I was also intending on buying some sunscreen on the day I received this box as I'd run out, so this was perfectly timed.  This is a great product, rubs into the skin really well, isn't white, and lasted a long time.  I would recommend this (this size is £13.50 on the Green People website).

Click here to read my blogs on the April and May The Vegan Kind boxes.

Project Pan Update #5 and Other Products

Firstly, I should apologise to those of you who are kind enough to read my blog for not putting up posts for the last two weekends.  Life took over and I didn't want to put up posts that were rushed and half-arsed.  But I'm back and I will try and also post the two posts I had intended for the last couple of weeks as extras this month.

So, we have now finished five months of me working on using up the products in my Project Pan.  I have to admit that things have definitely slowed down now and I am losing my momentum a little bit.  One thing I have realised doing this is that, even though I seem to like buying beauty products, I'm not really someone who actually likes using them.  It's just not something that comes naturally to me nor is it the first thing I think of doing when I want to relax/ feel good/ have something to do.  This has highlighted to me why getting rid of these products and keeping my routines simple is a good idea.

I have managed to finish off two products this month.  The first is the Neutrogena Hand Cream I got for Christmas.  This took much longer than I thought it would as I was using it every night.  It is a relatively good product, more like a grease than a cream, and worked well on my dry hands (which my work's hand soap really helps dry up).  However, it hasn't worked any better than my shea butter or olive oil (though it does sink into the skin a lot quicker) and the fact that Neutrogena is not cruelty free means I won't rebuy this product.

The second product wasn't actually part of my original Project Pan but is the Natural Collections lip liner in almond I wrote about in my last Project Pan update.  It isn't actually completely finished, but the pencil has disappeared into the lid and I can't get it out.  This lip liner is great for the price and would probably suit most people, but it didn't really suit my natural lip colour so I'm glad it's now gone.  As far as I'm aware Natural Collection is a cruelty free company though so I may look at other products of theirs in the future.

The eyeshadows are carrying on with the same steady pace as before.  To me this part of the Project Pan is going really slowly, especially when I watch others' Pan that Palette on YouTube.  I had hoped to have more eyeshadows finished by now so this part is a little disheartening.  The white eye shadow is going quicker now that I'm also using it as a highlighter.  I have been using an eyeshadow brush to put this on the top of my cheeks, but am now going to use a larger face brush that should help move it along quicker.  The pan on the silver eyeshadow is getting larger and the shadow around the pan is getting so tantalisingly thin that I'm trying not to get too hopeful.  The dark grey eyeshadow hasn't moved at all and I think I will leave it now and just use it as an eyeliner once the brown eyeshadow is finished.  I think I'll just need to keep plodding on with these.

I'm still working on the Elf Teal eye liner and, while it is getting smaller, this is another product that seems to really be going on forever.  This is going to be one of the products that I concentrate on this month with a view to have it finished in July.

The second product I'm going to be concentrating on in June is the Max Factor red lipstick in Cherry Kiss.  I have made some progress on it in May, but as I was concentrating on using up the nude lip liner I didn't reach for it as much as I could.  So this month I'll be rocking red basically every day (cue constant teeth licking).  I think I can actually finish this off this month and that will leave me with just two lip products left in the project to use up by the end of the year.

I have been using the Mac Creme Cup lipstick this month with the almond lip liner.  It has gone down, but as their lipstick is relatively pigmented I haven't really needed to use that much with it.  I have to say that the colour with the almond lip liner didn't really suit my skin colour, but now I should be able to adapt it.  However, I'm not going to worry about this lip colour this month until the red has gone.

The Lily Lolo eye primer is yet another product that is steadily plodding along.  I will be happy when the bottom half of the yellow primer is finally used up and then I'll feel that I might be able to finish that by the end of the year.  Fingers-crossed, maybe by the next update......

The one product on my Project Pan list that I added this month was the Dove Summer Glow moisturiser fair to medium skin.  I had brought this last year before my brother's wedding so that my legs didn't look so pasty white and hadn't used it since.  I'm not entirely sure why I decided to do that as I don't like the smell of self tanner and I don't really like the colour my skin goes.  I've been using it regularly in May and I will definitely finish it in the beginning of June, so I'll be finding myself in the weird position of actually getting paler over summer.

The last product I've used up is one of my Bioderma Micellar Waters.  This is another product that isn't actually on my Project Pan but that I'm looking to use up and not re-purchase in my path to going completely cruelty free.  I brought two large bottles in one go and this is the first one I've used up.  I don't actually go through these particularly quickly as I tend to use coconut oil to remove my make-up on a daily basis.  The micellar water does work but I find the oil much more effective and more gentle, especially on my eyes.  I won't be buying Bioderma Micellar Water again as they are not a cruelty free company, but I might look into getting another micellar water as it is useful to have on days I can't use oils to remove my make-up.

Nail polish this month has been a complete no show as I haven't even been wearing any.  I just haven't been in the mood to put any on and really haven't minded having my nails all natural.  It has made me realise that once these have all been used up and I replace them with more natural products I will probably only get one or two for me to wear now and then rather than a variety of colours.  Hopefully I'll have something to show next month.

So, that's eleven products used up - only another twenty-four products to go.

Below are links to all my previous project pan blogs:

• Introduction
• Project Pan Update #1
• Project Pan Update #2
• Project Pan Update #3
• Project Pan Update #4