The Green Monks

Despite political restrictions, monks in Burma are a force to preserve nature...

"Buddhist monks have always been a potent force for political and social change in Burma, from protesting against colonialism to providing basic education. Over the past decade, some monks have even begun to promote environmental conservation. While environmentalist monks are fairly common in Thailand and Cambodia, in Burma they are little known and little studied. For my undergraduate thesis, I studied several aspects of these environmentalist monks, and I feel it is safe to conclude that they work mostly in a decentralized fashion and that political, ecological, and cultural factors unique to Burma limit the role they can play...