Horticulture: In the absence of laws and guidelines, Thimphu has been rapidly losing apple orchards to development activities, especially infrastructure. Although the forest and agriculture ministry does not have figures to substantiate how many orchards have been lost, the decrease in number is evident from the renewable natural resource’s (RNR) census 2008, and the agriculture statistics 2012. In four years, the number of apple trees has reduced by almost half, states the RNR census. In 2008, there were 101,000 apple trees, of which 81,000 were fruit bearing. In 2012, it was found that the number had reduced to 51,698 of which 48,000 were fruit bearing ones. “These figures aren’t absolute, the number could change every year,” a statistic officer with the agriculture department said, adding that the number of trees, however, had drastically reduced over the years. In the other major apple producing dzongkhags of Haa and Paro, the number of trees has increased. Paro had 130,000 fruit bearing trees in 2008. The dzongkhag had 154,000 trees in 2012. Haa had 15,000 bearing trees in 2008, and four years later it had 21,000. Horticulture division’s fruits and nuts coordinator, Sangay Dendup said so far no major disease has affected apple trees in Thimphu. “If the number of trees or orchards are declining, then it’s only because of orchards being replaced with structures like buildings,” he said. Sangay Dendup said most apple growers in the capital, during trainings, have said they are less interested in continuing growing apples. “They’d rather construct houses because it will fetch them more income,” Sangay Dendup said. Agriculture specialist and director of agriculture department, Ganesh Chhetri, said there was no law to protect orchards. “The Land Act 1979 restricted construction of houses on land that earned cash income, but the Land Act 2007 doesn’t restrict it,” he said. Apple is one of the main horticulture products earning hard currency and is exported to India and Bangladesh. But officials said the export has also declined over the years. Agriculture and marketing cooperative department’s export report show that about 3,832MT of apples were exported to India and 1,115MT to Bangladesh in 2008. After four years, the export figures for India and Bangladesh reduced to about 859MT and 326MT. A research to establish the reason behind the decline in number of orchards is being planned. “We want to research the trend of orchards being replaced with developmental activities,” Sangay Dendup said. It is apparent that the orchards are lost to construction works, Sangay Dendup said, but without a close study there are no figures to prove it.