Contributed by Chimi Rinzin, Country Director

Global temperatures breached the critical threshold of 1.5°C in 2024, while parts of Bhutan recorded highs exceeding 40°C. According to the Living Planet Report 2024, vertebrate populations have declined by 69-73 percent, and freshwater species have plummeted by 83 percent. We are living through the Anthropocene extinction, often called the Sixth Mass Extinction.

This is where GMC stands apart: a bold, distinctive initiative offering a 21st century solution to 21s century crises. It is a living demonstration of a conservation pathway, a coexistence model, and a carbon-negative development solutions engineered for a centuries of resilience.

GMC is likely the only city deliberately designed with the integration of its protected area network, the Royal Manas National Park, Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary, and the Biological Corridor, creating a living landscape where parks and city merge without walls separating ‘wildlife’ from ‘human.’

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©Gelephu Mindfulness City

It reflects Bhutan’s enduring environmental ethos, which has guided the development of national parks and protected areas, delivering world-class conservation results. This vision recognizes nature as inseparable from the people and economy, and life itself, the fundamental principle of nature-based solutions.

GMC addresses the age-old question of how do we balance development imperatives with environmental and biodiversity trade-offs? It challenges the GDP-driven matrix that dominates policy and decision-making, bridging the divide between development practitioners and conservationists, who on many ocassions stands at polar distance.

Designed with an intergenerational mandate, GMC seeks to uphold the fundamental right to economic prosperity for all Bhutanese, not just a privileged few, while institutionalizing principles that harmonize nature as an economic pillar of sustainability.

As the world’s first true “Buddhist City,” GMC will be a sanctuary where people, nature, and spirituality coexist in harmony. After all, Its sacred land is graced by the Four Noble Friends: the endangered Asian elephant, the monkey (or golden langur), the Hispid hare, and the majestic peafowl, the species that have coexisted alongside humanity for centuries. Here, Royal Bengal tigers roam and guard the lanscape, the only living guardians of Dharma, while the morning skies and twilight evenings are adorned with all four endangered hornbill species. Beneath the sky, the golden mahseer, the sole living emblem among the Eight Auspicious Signs and venerated as Matsya, the fish incarnation of Lord Vishnu rules the rivers.

GMC therefore could set a global benchmark as the first city to achieve Conservation Assured Tiger Standards (CA|TS) certification.

Born of His Majesty’s infinite compassion, GMC is more than an urban project. It is living proof that Gross National Happiness is no longer just a philosophical ideal but a practical, mindful development model for the 21st century. It demonstrates that progress and conservation are not opposing forces but partners in shaping a sustainable future- a solution for a world fractured by inequality, biodiversity loss, and climate crises.