Environmental Guidelines for Karma Kagyu Buddhist Monasteries, Centers and Community

After a preface in which the author reviews the essential components of Buddhism in relation to the environment, this work is structured in five parts devoted to the protection of forests, water and wildlife, waste management and climate change. The author highlights the importance of each of these five aspects from a Buddhist point of view and reviews their environmental and ecological functions. The author also discusses the main problems affecting these concepts and proposes practical solutions to the main problems that they face. The document ends with a number of directives for highly vulnerable sites and provides recommendations regarding the organization in monasteries. These ideas were presented at the first Congress on Environmental Protection in Buddhist Kagyu monasteries and centres (Tibet) in 2009 whose aim was to increase environmental awareness in the Himalayan region.