As Southeast Asia suffers drastic environmental problems, anthropologists have studied
the role of Buddhism and Buddhist monks in protecting the region’s environment. While much has been written on Thailand’s ecology monks1 and Cambodia’s Buddhist environmental NGOs, few scholars have written about or studied the interaction between Buddhist civil society and environmental conservation in Burma.3 While many people assume that because of Burma’s political isolation, Buddhist civil society plays no significant role in conservation, Buddhist actors, from laypeople to academics to monks, work to spread environmentally friendly norms and attitudes, as well as help directly with conservation projects. However, in comparison to other Southeast Asian countries, the role of these segments of society remains relatively limited, in part due to political, economic development, and cultural differences between the countries. Understanding the exact role of these actors, and why they are less active in Burma than elsewhere, will help conservationists work more closely with religious institutions in the region and elsewhere.
Research and Methodology
There have been many articles and books written on the Thai and Cambodian Buddhist environmental actors, particularly monks. These sources help provide an understanding of how such actors can aid in environmental conservation efforts. However, because such little research has been conducted on Buddhist environmental actors in Burma, there are few resources actually discussing this subject. Some reports for environmental organizations and conservationists operating in the country mention cooperation with environmentalist monks, but most sources refer to them only in passing.
To gain a more complete understanding, I traveled to Burma in 2004 to interview Buddhist environmental actors and assess the situation there. I visited Alaungdaw Kathapa National Park (AKNP), and two small forest sanctuaries, one in Po Win Thaung, Sagaing Division, and the other in Peyindaung, near Inle Lake, Shan State, to actually see how environmental monks operated there. From my conversations with park staff, I found that the activities in these areas are not exceptional, but can be found elsewhere in Burma.
Burma’s Recent Political History
After World War II, Burmese nationalists led by General Aung San sought independence from Britain. The country gained its independence in 1948, although political opponents assassinated Aung San in 1947. Meanwhile, ethnic minorities, such as the Karen, the Kachin, and the Wa, fought the new ethnic-majority Burman government for more autonomy. After the rebellion was suppressed, Prime Minister U Nu, a Burman, tried to gain popular support for his government by sponsoring Buddhist conferences and construction projects. Even though much of the country followed Theravada Buddhism, the military feared that the government’s Buddhist chauvinism would push the minorities to reignite the conflict. In 1962, the military took over the country. The new government, led by General Ne Win, espoused the “Burmese Way to Socialism.” Unlike his predecessor, Ne Win granted no official privileges to Buddhism. The military regime suppressed all political dissent and organizations,4 and its misplaced economic policies bankrupted much of the populace.
In 1988, massive pro-democracy protests drove Ne Win’s regime out of power, only to be replaced by another military coup calling itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) (renamed the “State Peace and Development Council” in 1997), which abandoned much of Ne Win’s socialisim and isolationism. Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter General Aung San, led the democratic opposition, which forced the SLORC to schedule parliamentary elections in 1990. However, when Suu Kyi’s party won over 82% of the seats, the military reneged on its promise and continued to rule the country. In the meantime, the SLORC arrested Suu Kyi and other political activists.5 After a brief period of freedom, Suu Kyi was attacked by government sponsored thugs and rearrested in May 2003. In response, the United States and other Western governments imposed strict sanctions on Burma.
In October 2004, Than Shwe, Burma’s top general, purged more moderate generals including Khin Nyunt from power. The government has also decided to move the country’s
capital from the densely populated Rangoon to the remote Pyinmana. China, India, and Russia continue to support the country internationally, despite growing isolation from the West and the rest of ASEAN. Meanwhile, at least 1,100 political prisoners are still held in the country’s jails, including many Buddhist monks,6 and the generals show no sign of heading toward a resolution to the political impasse.
Background on Burma’s Environmental Crisis
Burma possesses ecological hotspots and forests unlike those found anywhere else on Earth. Western conservation organizations have proclaimed it a region of exceptionally high biodiversity. According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, it has a relatively low ecological footprint. Unlike its neighbors, Burma still has 52.3% of its forest cover left, one of the highest percentages in Southeast Asia.8 These forests include over 60% of the world’s remaining natural teak forests.9 However, increased logging from foreign and domestic firms threatens this biodiversity. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Burma loses an average of 1.4% of its forest cover each year. Since the country opened its doors to the outside world in 1988, Thailand and China, which have implemented logging bans in their own countries, eagerly turned to Burma’s forests for timber, much of it illegally exported. Burma now supplies around 75% of the world’s commercial teak products.10 In Central Burma, population growth near forest areas has led to an increase in shifting cultivation, forest conversion for fuel wood, and commercial palm plantations.
Fortunately, Burma does not yet face the major pollution issues that Thailand does. Industrialization has only begun in earnest since the SPDC coup. Unfortunately, hotels, factories, and automobile use have all begun to take their toll on the environment. Litter mars much of the countryside, even in national parks. The environmental impact of Burma’s growing economy will only worsen as the population grows and the country’s poverty deepens.
Background on Green Buddhism Philosophy
Numerous prominent Buddhism scholars argue that Buddhism contains many environmentally friendly principles. According to classic Buddhist texts, the Buddha lays down specific rules regarding respect for life. In the Cullavagga, he explains that a priest who had been killed by a poisonous snake must have failed to cultivate metta, a form of universal benevolent compassion, toward the snake families. Metta also encompasses trees and plants. One Theravada Buddhist story castigates a monk who cut down a tree that held a tree spirit. After this incident, the Buddha laid down strict rules prohibiting monks from cutting or harvesting plants. Some scholars even claim that the original reason for the monsoon season retreat, during which monks must stay on monastic grounds, was to minimize the trampling of grasses and plants that flourish in the rain.
Buddhist Environmental Actors 1: Buddhist Laypeople
While only a minority of Burmese Buddhist laypeople has a conscious concern for the environment, the principles of Buddhism may inherently lead them to live a more ecologically sustainable lifestyle. There is a long tradition of positive merit inducements for environmental protection. The Buddha himself proclaimed, “Planters of groves and fruitful trees… for ever doth the merit grow.” As such, in 1084, King Kyanzittha ordered the reforestation of the Irrawaddy valley and created game preserves as part of a series of merit-based programs. Centuries later, the increased role of the Buddhist sangha in Burmese society led King Shembuan to issue a proclamation forbidding the killing of animals. In the 1800s, pious King Mindon took one of the first steps in conservation land management when he declared the area surrounding present day Mandalay to be a wildlife sanctuary. Less regal merit efforts include citizens planting trees and caring for gardens in Rangoon. All of these activities are seen as means to gain merit, but also serve to protect and repopulate forests.
While some of these negative incentives act as described, a trip to Burma quickly reveals that the reality falls far short of the ideal. Critics point out that Buddhism alone cannot limit environmental damage in a modernizing society. Geographer Taun Yi-fu correctly notes that, despite Western perceptions, Eastern religions and environmental attitudes often do not translate into better environmental practice. In an analysis of Buddhist practice in Burma, Spiro claims that many laypeople pursue religious activities more to gain recognition as a good Buddhist than to perform a moral deed. Furthermore, I found that relatively few people had even considered the possible relationship between Buddhist philosophy and environmentalism. Given all of this, even though the positive inducements such as tree planting see to at the least produce an actualized benefit, it is uncertain how effective the negative inducements can actually be in reducing environmental stress.
Buddhist Environmental Actors 2: Buddhism Intelligentsia
Some laypeople, particularly Buddhist philosophers and environmentalists, do see Buddhist philosophy as a useful tool to actively promote environmental concerns. They employ a variety of media, including newspaper articles and academic research.30 Much of their work simply seeks to explain that Buddhist philosophy has environmentally friendly tenets and how Burmese laypeople should follow them. For example, U Maung Maung Soe Tint, a retired ambassador, wrote a piece for The New Light of Burma calling upon people to extend their conception of metta to include compassion for more of the natural world. Some articles have practical conservation suggestions. In an editorial in Burma Perspectives Magazine, Daw San San Aye suggests, “The religious merit gained from planting a tree is equal to the merit gained from building a monastery or a rest house.” Such articles are a direct appeal to the public at large to take an interest in environmental issues because of their faith in Buddhism.
Another common theme is advocating the pursuit of a “middle path” or sustainable way to development. U Ohn, General Secretary for the Forest Resource and Environmental Development and Conservation Association (FREDA), a Burmese environmental NGO, wrote an article on how Buddhism inherently leads Burmese toward a more sustainable “middle-path” development. Daw Kyi Kyi Hla, a professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Rangoon University, also wrote a paper on the ethics of sustainable development as seen through a Buddhist worldview.
I also met a monk in Rangoon who wrote environmental articles asking people to plant trees. Rather than piling sand on the temple grounds as recompense for misdeeds and impure thoughts, as tradition dictates, he writes, planting trees would give the planter merit because trees provide shade, stabilize the climate, and form watersheds against floods.35 His writing has the added authority coming from a monk. However, as a monk writing for a widespread audience about environmental issues, he seems to be an exception. The general focus on the role of Buddhism in influencing the individual, as opposed to the sangha (monkhood) or the government, is unique to Burmese writers on this subject. In fact, the lack of any analysis on the role of monks in environmental conservation in Burma is a glaring absence from their work. The authors I interviewed seemed to dismiss the importance of monks in environmental issues. It is also important to note that few of these intellectuals, with the exception mentioned above, are themselves monks, which may help explain the lack of emphasis on the sangha as a tool for environmentalism.
Buddhist Environmental Actors 3: Buddhist Ecology Monks
Monks have also taken initiatives in areas outside from the National Parks. Several monks have established unofficial forest sanctuaries, relying on traditional Buddhist taboos against hunting or logging near monasteries. A senior monk at one Buddhist University recounted that, while on retreat in Shan State, he requested villagers not to log the area around his monastery, and the villagers by and large obeyed his request. U Mine Po, a revered monk, actually had the Forest Department officially protect an area near Tachilek he guarded from Thai loggers. In 1959, the Trustee Committee of Sagaing Division took an unusual step and entrusted the monks of Po Win Thaung with managing that area’s forests. The Forest Department must obtain permission from the monks before it can undertake any conservation activity. Monks can also use rituals to establish protection for forests. According to one story I heard, a monk tied pieces of Buddhist robes around trees to indicate that people should not cut them down. This practice bears an uncanny resemblance to tree ordination, a practice ecology monks in Cambodia and Thailand often use to endow certain trees and forests with a holy aura and protect them from loggers. Previously, I had not seen this activity had not been reported in Burma. It remains uncertain whether this innovation was indigenous or acquired through contact with Thai or Cambodian ecology monks. However, as these examples show, monks in Burma can and do play an important role in environmental conservation in Burma.
Comparative Analysis and Explanatory Factors
Even though members of Buddhist civil society in Burma do play a role in using Buddhism for environmental conservation, it is far smaller role than their counterparts in Thailand and Cambodia. Even though only a minority of monks in Thailand and Cambodia are actively involved with environmental issues, they constitute a greater percentage of the sangha that ecology monks in Burma do. Furthermore, unlike Burma’s ecology monks, they have received international recognition and funding for their efforts and have joined the Asian Buddhist Network of the Alliance for Religions in Conservation (ARC). In the next few sections, I assess the political, economic development, and cultural factors that have hindered the development of Buddhist environmentalism in Burma. Much of the analysis below focuses the monks, as this is where the largest differences between lie, although much of the analysis is applicable to all three actors.
Factor 1: Political Restrictions on Buddhist Civil Society
As one would expect given its history of military rule, Burma’s Buddhist civil society faces many restrictions on its freedom to operate. The international NGO Freedom House has consistently given Burma its worst score for its lack of political and civil freedoms. Since the Ne Win era, the sangha has officially been little more than a government-organized NGO. Nothing improved in 1988, when the SLORC/SPDC came into power; the new generals were highly suspicious of the monks after their outspoken role in the pro-democracy protests and banned all independent sangha organizations.50 It also arrested more than 200 monks, and charged many of them under Article 295 of the Penal Code, for “offenses relating to religion.” Even when monks are allowed to create an organization, such as environmental NGOs, the lack of freedom still causes many difficulties and requires them to seek powerful patrons to survive. Furthermore, the lack of information prevents monks from becoming effective environmental activists. The role the lack of freedom plays in suppressing ecology monks was demonstrated to me when one monk actually complained about political restrictions preventing him from forming an environmental NGO. By contrast, Thai and Cambodian ecology monks have a much more
free society, although they still take some risks in challenging vested political interests. Monks have founded environmental NGOs in both countries and organize laypeople to protest environmental destruction. Until Burma achieves a similar level of freedom, it seems unlikely that its ecology monks can reach the level of their neighbors.
Political restrictions also dampen the ability of the writers and intelligentsia to write about Buddhism and the environment. According to Freedom House, Burma’s censorship of the media ranks among the most restrictive in the world. This makes accurate and realistic reporting on environmental issues nearly impossible. Furthermore, all academic work is censored and writers cannot discuss controversial environmental problems. This has led much of the work on Buddhist environmentalism to focus on relatively innocuous subjects, such as Buddhist philosophy or environmental problems in the abstract, rather than applying it to particular instances or using Buddhism to address the root causes of environmental destruction. By contrast, in Thailand and, to a lesser degree, in Cambodia writers will attack government interests involved in environmental destruction. In fact, much of the Thai Buddhist ecology movement grew as a response and in opposition to the state’s own development plans. Without freedom of information, Burma’s Buddhist environmentalists cannot challenge the state or raise the alarm over environmental damage.
Factor 2: Economic Development and Environmental Damage
Another factor limiting he amount of Buddhist environmentalism in Burma is the country’s relatively low level of environmental destruction. The country has an ecological footprint of merely 0.9, relatively small compared to .1 for Cambodia and 1.6 for Thailand. Burma’s unstable political climate and corruption stifle foreign investment and economic growth to abysmal levels. Even before the United States’ latest sanctions, many Western countries refused to invest in, or even divested from, Burma in protest of its human rights abuses and poor market conditions. In 2005, Transparency International ranked Burma as having some of the highest levels of corruption in the world. Although the post-1988 opening of Burma to foreign direct investment has increased environmental destruction, economic growth has not yet taken its full toll on the country’s ecology. Relative to its neighbors, the extent of Burma’s environmental destruction is limited.
This has the effect of deprioritizing the importance of environmental protection for most
of its citizens. Countries tend to respond to environmental problems only when they have
reached a certain level of seriousness. With such low economic growth and so many other problems, the protecting the country’s natural resources is simply not a priority for most people. Furthermore, Western sanctions and more dire environmental crises elsewhere mean that environmental NGOs are reluctant to operate in the country. Thailand, by contrast, faced rampant pollution and deforestation in the 1970s and 1980s, which prompted monks and other concerned citizens to respond. Even though Burma and Cambodia are both poor countries with similar GDP per capita, the latter suffers from a more rapid depletion of its resources and greater environmental health issues. Even within Burma, those who respond to environmental problems are either more educated or people directly affected by the problems. The ecology monks in Burma respond either to the challenges of living near a national park or to the health and resource problems affecting their communities. The writers and academics often are more knowledgeable about environmental problems and received education from foreign environmentalists as well. In short, the relative lack of gravity of Burma’s environmental problems could be one reason for the relatively weak response on the part of Buddhist civil society.
Factor 3: Cultural Shock and Buddhism in Burma
Historically, Burmese Theravada Buddhism has been more conservative and less prone to
promoting social activism than Thai or Cambodian Buddhism. Burmese see the role of the
monks as exemplars in meditation, not in charitable service.58 Much of this difference is rooted in Burmese Buddhism’s Samsara philosophy and traditionalist Singhalese influence. I found this explanation particularly interesting because many commentators in Burma cited it as the primary reason why monks do not involve themselves in environmental affairs. However, while these cultural differences are very real, do not seem to reflect the actual activism of Burmese Buddhists. There have usually been at least some Buddhists, either laypeople or monks, who have used Buddhism to promote social change. During the 1920s, the monks U Ottama and U Wisara led the resistance against British rule. In fact, Sir Herbert White, working in the office of the British Chief Commissioner, noted, “wherever there was an appearance of organised resistance, Buddhist monks were among the chiefs.60 Although the Prime Minister Nu’s Buddhist revival during the 1950s tended to emphasize Pali education, pagoda construction, and meditation over social activism, Buddhist civil society continues to be active in several social spheres. Monks took part in the pro-democracy protests of 1988 and in the sangha’s 1990 boycott on accepting alms from military personnel. Monastic primary school education for the poor still thrives in rural areas. Monks have even founded modern high schools and hospitals.
In light of this, it seems more appropriate to look at not only the cultural norms surrounding any social activity, but also why environmental protection is not generally considered within the sphere of Buddhist civil society. In Thailand and Cambodia, the environment was only incorporated into Buddhist civil society after they both underwent massive social crises. In Thailand, modernization destroyed many traditional communal and religious bonds. The sangha lost respect as senior monks became embroiled in political and sexual scandals. To a large degree, the sangha lost its role as community leader and teacher to the modern state. In Cambodia, Pol Pot’s in the late 1970s killed or exiled many of the country’s monks and intellectuals. In both countries, Buddhist civil society championed environmental protection in large part to reestablish Buddhism’s relevance by addressing a new and important issue. Some monks, including the late Thai monk Buddhadasa, redefined the role of monks by addressing the environmental degradation and other social issues facing their communities. Santikaro Bhikkhu, a Thai monk, even notes, “At heart, Phra Sekhiyadhamma [a network of monks for social activism] is working for a revival of Thai Buddhism.”
Unlike the Thai or Cambodian Buddhist civil societies, Burma’s sangha has neither suffered systemic persecution nor been driven to the margins of society by development. Consequently, traditional Buddhism remains very strong in the country. Although the regime has arrested monks who protest for democracy, this threatens neither the sangha’s influence nor its religious authority. Furthermore, widespread suspicions that the military has littered monasteries with informants do not seem to have diminished widespread respect for monks. A massive political or industrial shock that displaces the role of Buddhist civil society in Burma may lead the monks and writers respond by addressing environmental issues, as they have done in Thailand. However, in order for Burma’s Buddhist civil society to expand its self-image to include environmental issues, the country will probably also have to undergo more political relaxation and environmental change.
Conclusion
Buddhist civil society in Burma, including the laypeople, academics, and monks, has begun to respond to environmental change in the country. While the laypeople may behave in an environmentally friendly manner by attempting to follow Buddhist rules, writers and monks can help spread environmentally friendly norms through Buddhist philosophy. Furthermore, monks can help by persuading villagers to refrain from environmental destruction and using their influence to set up protected areas.
The extent of the involvement of Buddhist civil society in the future will likely depend on changes in the political situation, development, and cultural norms. However, I do not believe that environmentalists cannot progress in Burma without a massive change in all of these categories. The Communist government in China permits environmental NGOs to work on nonsensitive environmental issues. And if the country were to open up, foreign NGOs would undoubtedly want to work with Buddhist civil society to preserve the country’s resources before it is too late.
In fact, the government could create greater room for more Buddhist environmentalism as
a means to channel the current dissatisfaction with the regime since it would be far less threatening than an environmental movement based on the Western model of challenging the state. It could also require the Buddhist missionaries it sends to parts of Burma to have training in sustainable development to spread best practices throughout the country. While these advances are unlikely anytime soon, the country’s Buddhist civil society already has taken important steps toward environmental protection and has enormous potential to do more.
Author: Dominic Nardi
Georgetown University Law School
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