Communication about environmentalism: The life release practice of Buddhism in Vietnam

Phóng sinh (English: releasing life; Chinese: 放生 fangsheng; Tibetan: tshe thar) refers to the Buddhist practice of saving animals from death and captivity. In Vietnam, the Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha describes the practice as an act of compassion towards other beings who are in suffering, and through saving lives, the practitioners can accumulate good merit for themselves and their relatives. That being said, the rapid but poorly-managed spread of life release on Vietnamese media has raised significant environmental and ethical concerns, negatively impacting the public image of this practice. The author found that the communication strategies used by the Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha to promote engagement with this practice, resemble the environmental communication model of Stoknes. This explained the popularity of the practice in society. Despite achievements in conservational release and the fish-restocking program, and mitigations of negative impacts as part of the environmental transformation of the practice, the Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha is limiting the communication of the practice, as observed in the current trend. This suggests the Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha’s intentions of switching to other activities that are less environmentally risky compared to life release practice, considering the increasing rate of poaching and trading wild/endangered species in Vietnam. This thesis explored the environmentalizing effort of Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha in response to climate change from the lens of communication for environmentalism.