“I think Bhutan is way ahead of everyone else in terms of preserving their biosphere and their culture and taking care of their citizens” and south Africa as a child, went to school in England and then eventually travelled much of the world as an A&K guide, but somehow never made it to Bhutan. And although &Beyond had been sending its clients to Bhutan using a local partner since 2012, Kent only made it to the Buddhist kingdom six years ago. “It didn’t disappoint. In fact, I was overwhelmed with the experience of being in this incredible country. I walked through rice paddies, we hiked up to monasteries, I made it to Tiger’s Nest,” he recalled as we started our climb upwards and the roar of the river began to fade. “We said if we could build an Africa-style safari camp but built reflecting traditional Bhutanese architecture, with a sense of place, and with the support of the local community, what an amazing place it would be to bring our guests. And what a great place to start the adventure of building outside Africa.” One thing that &Beyond and Bhutan have in common is a shared goal of conserving land and indigenous cultures while at the same time, in order to do so, trying to make that goal profitable. Just as the current King of Bhutan, who was educated in the United States and at Oxford, and his father, have believed in measuring the country’s progress with their GNH (Gross National Happiness) Index, for Kent, growing and supporting positive impact is what drives him to make more profit. One of the questions Kent is always grappling with as a CEO of a travel company is: can our footprints be lighter and more meaningful than destructive? “It’s an endlessly complex challenge, especially when growing the company but, ultimately, my team, my board and I believe we can,” he says. He believes there is a lot for &Beyond and its guests to learn from Bhutan, both in its priorities and leadership. “I think Bhutan is way ahead of everyone else in terms of preserving their biosphere and their culture and taking care of their citizens,” says Kent as we continue to climb upwards, occasionally following a switchback path that once in a while opens up to spectacular views of this valley of lush rice terraces (the temperate Punakha Valley is the rice bowl of the country) that spill down on every side to the snaking Mo Chhu. “They don’t just have a 50-year plan; the King here is talking about a 500-year conservation plan,” he says. “And not just talking about it, it’s in the legislation,” he continues and then mentions how China had approached the King with an offer to buy a swath of the country’s forests. Not only did he reject the deal, the King introduced into the constitution the mandatory protection of a minimum of 60 per cent of the country’s forest cover for all time. That, along with its investment in hydropower, has allowed Bhutan the elite green status of being the only carbon negative country in the world. Of course, it is easier to lead a country that is small and fertile, especially when a constitutional monarchy is in place. But the concern with environment protection and traditional culture, as well as its long-term thinking, has as much to do with the fact that the primary religion in Bhutan is Buddhism. When the Bhutanese pray, explains our guide, Tashi Delek, who always wears a gho – the traditional male costume of knee-length, robe-like cloth wrapped around the body and secured with a belt – they ask not just for the wellbeing of their family and community, but for all sentient beings. In Western religions, we believe our good deeds will allow entry into a final stop called heaven; Buddhists believe we return to this earth again and again, which must certainly encourage a more long-term, custodial role of our planet. We have reached a stone wall with steps that led up to the entrance to the monastery. At the top of the steps was a giant prayer wheel painted with a mantra; Kent takes a few clockwise turns. After passing through the entrance, we finally arrive at Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten, a three-storey stupa built about 20 years ago by the Queen Mother, with the purpose of warding off evil spirits and bringing peace to the world, 92 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
which took artisans almost a decade to construct. (“Can you imagine any of our world leaders doing such a thing?” asks someone in our group.) Inside was the most spectacular 4.5m-tall statue of Vajrakilaya, a fierce, monstrous deity with six arms, a face wearing a crown of skulls and a necklace of decapitated heads. It was carved and painted with so much detail it made one dizzy to look at too long. “It’s what we call yidam which has the capacity to destroy any force hostile to compassion and can remove the obstacles on one’s spiritual path to enlightenment,” explains Delek. On the second floor we came upon a monk in a haze of incense chanting and playing a nga, a doublesided sacred drum, and Delek gave us a brief history of Bhutan, which was officially founded in AD747 with the introduction of Buddhism to the country by the hallowed religious leader Guru Rinpoche. Considered a saint, Guru Rinpoche was said to have flown to Taktsang (where the Tiger’s Nest is located) from Tibet on the back of a tiger to conquer the demon spirits there. He then meditated in a cave on which the Tiger’s Nest temple is now built. For centuries, Tibetans dubbed the country the “Southern Valley of Medicinal Herbs” or the “Lotus Garden of the Gods”. The Bhutanese themselves called their land Druk Yul, which means “The Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon”, and it was only well into the 20th century that outsiders were allowed to enter this last remaining Himalayan kingdom. We wander to the top of the stupa, which gives us a stunning view of the whole valley, and then make our way in silence back down the stairs and outside. Cameras and phones are not allowed within Bhutan’s holy buildings; the result is that one is more attentive and in the moment within these mystical spaces. “This destination is more about experiencing its people and culture than tracking the big five,” said Kent, soon after we had started on the path back down the hill. “Bhutan’s living culture is what makes this country so unique.” Later he says, “I don’t believe in organised religion for various reasons. If anything, I am more of an animist and believe in the healing power of nature.” We stop at a curve in the path to look out over the rice terraces, “That is probably why Bhutan as a destination resonates so deeply with me,” Kent muses. On the way back down, Kent explains how the immediate goal of &Beyond is to conserve a footprint of about 405,000 hectares of key biosphere and to double its revenue and profit in the next few years to fund its ambitious impact goals. Those include heading on a path to net zero by 2050, supporting local communities by building schools, investing in women’s health and education (“you focus on women, who are the foundation of their communities, and you touch on all the core issues”) and investing in frontier areas, like the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, that are important to protect, which it would not normally do because the financial outcomes are not predictable. The company is starting to invest in key partnerships, like the Lion Recovery Fund, that it estimates will support the conservation of an additional 16m hectares of key biospheres. In order to have a plan for scaling up the Africa model, Kent says that, a few months, ago he and his core team “locked ourselves down in one of our lodges in Botswana’s Okavango Delta for five days and argued and discussed until we were finally able to create a comprehensive plan that we could fit on one piece of paper.” Kent laughs: “It ended up looking like a mandala or a paint-bynumbers.” He explained it involved folding &Beyond’s foundation goals into its business plan. “Essentially, we hammered out what we are trying to do in terms of conservation and impact, and then reverse-engineered it to plot out the business strategy we need to achieve it,” he describes. “We were mapping something out that doesn’t exist at all,” he continues. But that is the direction that companies need to go: “It’s a road map for CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 93
