Where Mountains Meet the Future
The dzong rises from the valley floor like it grew from the rock itself. At 7,218 feet, the Paro Valley stretches below: conifer forests climbing ridgelines, rice paddies catching the light, and monasteries perched on cliffs that take your breath before the altitude does. Bhutan keeps over 60% of its land forested by constitutional mandate, the only country on Earth that absorbs more carbon than it produces. Here, progress is measured in happiness, not GDP.
Students trek from the valley floor to Chelela Pass at 13,000 feet, setting camera traps in old-growth forest as the canopy thins and plant communities reshape with every hundred meters. In the Phobjikha wetlands, black-necked cranes arrive as winter settles, and students count them. Monastery visits and homestays with farming families give those transects roots in the places people live and worship.
What You'll Do
Elevation Transects
Trek from Paro Woochu to Chelela Pass at 13,000 feet, identifying plant communities, measuring tree diameter and height, and mapping vegetation across Bhutan's dramatic altitudinal gradient.
Camera Trapping & Mist Netting
Deploy camera traps across micro-sites from valley old-growth to high ridgelines, catching snow leopards and takin on the move, and mist-net birds along elevation gradients for avian diversity assessments.
Phobjikha Valley & Crane Grounds
Travel to the Phobjikha Valley to count black-necked cranes, observe feeding behavior, and visit the Black-Necked Crane Center in one of their critical wintering habitats.
Community Homestays
Spend a day with Bhutanese farming families in villages like Phobjikha, documenting traditional land use practices and the impacts of rural-to-urban migration on mountain livelihoods.
Buddhist Conservation Philosophy
Walk pilgrimage routes to Tango Monastery, interview monks at Buddhist colleges, and study how Bhutan's Buddhist worldview underpins Gross National Happiness and conservation policy.
Forest Inventory & Community Forestry
Conduct forest resource inventories measuring tree parameters and growing stock, calculate biomass across Bhutan's forest types, and study how community forests place woodlands in village hands.
Field Sites
Fieldwork spans subtropical valleys, 13,000-foot alpine passes, black-necked crane wetlands, and the monasteries between them.
Paro Valley & Chelela Pass
Home base at 7,218 feet below the Tiger's Nest, with transects climbing to 13,000 feet at Chelela.
Phobjikha & Punakha Valleys
Black-necked crane wintering grounds, daytime homestay visits, and the Agricultural Resources Center in Bajo.
Thimphu & Cultural Sites
The National Biodiversity Center, a Tango Monastery pilgrimage, and the Royal Takin Preserve.
Where the Constitution Protects the Forest
Camera traps catch red pandas and Asiatic wild dogs in the old-growth, and snow leopards on the ridgelines above. At Chelela Pass, mist-netting captures bird species along an elevation gradient that climbs past 13,000 feet. In the Phobjikha wetlands, black-necked cranes arrive for winter, and students count them. The data feeds the Royal University of Bhutan and the Bhutan Ecological Society, real institutions making real decisions in the world's only carbon-negative country.
Interdisciplinary & Field-Based
Five courses weave mountain ecology, natural resource management, and political ecology into a field-driven curriculum. Students trek to Chelela Pass for elevation transects, mist-net birds along the gradient, interview monks on Buddhist environmental ethics, and visit Chhukha Hydropower Plant to study development trade-offs, all building toward Directed Research in partnership with the Royal University of Bhutan and the Bhutan Ecological Society.
Courses
Five integrated courses totaling 18 credits
Surveys Himalayan biogeography through elevation transects, camera trapping, mist-netting, black-necked crane counts, and freshwater macroinvertebrate assessments across Bhutan's altitudinal gradient.
View Syllabus (PDF)Examines Bhutanese land use through forest resource inventories, community forestry visits, and agroecology field lectures on terracing and indigenous management.
View Syllabus (PDF)Uses political ecology to examine Gross National Happiness, hydropower development, Buddhist environmental ethics, and rural livelihood mapping through field exercises and stakeholder interviews.
View Syllabus (PDF)Beginner Dzongkha language, monastery visits, festival attendance, a cooking class in traditional cuisine, and market shopping to practice conversational skills.
View Syllabus (PDF)Faculty-led field research with the Royal University of Bhutan: past projects include Asiatic wild dog occupancy in the Paro Valley, avian communities across the Chelela elevational gradient, and survival of Bhutan's Million Trees Initiative plantations.
View Syllabus (PDF)
Start Your Himalayan Semester
Applications are now open for upcoming semesters.
Dates & Costs
Semester program: 15 weeks, 18 credits. Financial aid and SFS scholarships available.
