The Role of Myanmar Poems in Environmental Conservation
Irrawaddy Literary Festival (Myanmar)
3-2-2013
The Role of Myanmar Poems in Environmental Conservation
I would first like to express my thanks to the organizers of the Irrawaddy
Literature Festival for this opportunity to discuss my “view on the significant role of Myanmar traditional Literature and culture in environmental conservation and sustainable development”. The topic I have chosen is on how Myanmar traditional poems can contribute towards environmental conservation and sustainable development from the aesthetic perspective.
Like all organism, human beings rely on the natural environment for survival and well-being. But, unlike other living beings human needs not only physical nutrients, but mental supplement such as aesthetic feeling plays a vital role for his survival. Appreciation of beauty is one of the distinctive element that distinguishes humans from other creatures, that is, we like to live in beautiful places full of blooming flowers, green trees, singing birds as mental nutrients while we need fresh air and clean water with full of minerals as our physical nutrients. The natural environment provide our aesthetic needs through its amazing beauty such as ranges of purple mountain, snowy peak, green forests and prairies, the far-reaching spaces of blue oceans and colourful seashells, flowing yellowish rivers, the twittering sounds of birds and beasts with their mates, colourful flowers in bloom, and so forth. In my view the beauty of nature has always stimulated awareness that we have to preserve our environment to preserve this beauty. Today this beauty is rapidly vanishing; mega cities have replaced many beautiful landscapes and this has left human beings empty-hearted. It may be one of the causes in the rise of crime and violence in the inner cities of megapolices. The phenomena of natural world have historically been the subject and object of aesthetics. When we use the term ‘natural’ it has been conceptualized
3-2-2013
The Role of Myanmar Poems in Environmental Conservation
I would first like to express my thanks to the organizers of the Irrawaddy
Literature Festival for this opportunity to discuss my “view on the significant role of Myanmar traditional Literature and culture in environmental conservation and sustainable development”. The topic I have chosen is on how Myanmar traditional poems can contribute towards environmental conservation and sustainable development from the aesthetic perspective.
Like all organism, human beings rely on the natural environment for survival and well-being. But, unlike other living beings human needs not only physical nutrients, but mental supplement such as aesthetic feeling plays a vital role for his survival. Appreciation of beauty is one of the distinctive element that distinguishes humans from other creatures, that is, we like to live in beautiful places full of blooming flowers, green trees, singing birds as mental nutrients while we need fresh air and clean water with full of minerals as our physical nutrients. The natural environment provide our aesthetic needs through its amazing beauty such as ranges of purple mountain, snowy peak, green forests and prairies, the far-reaching spaces of blue oceans and colourful seashells, flowing yellowish rivers, the twittering sounds of birds and beasts with their mates, colourful flowers in bloom, and so forth. In my view the beauty of nature has always stimulated awareness that we have to preserve our environment to preserve this beauty. Today this beauty is rapidly vanishing; mega cities have replaced many beautiful landscapes and this has left human beings empty-hearted. It may be one of the causes in the rise of crime and violence in the inner cities of megapolices. The phenomena of natural world have historically been the subject and object of aesthetics. When we use the term ‘natural’ it has been conceptualized