Introduction

It is a forgone conclusion to this essay that there is dire need for an environmental ethic. The extent to which we human beings are capable of changing the earth is only just being realised. We are daily assailed by increasing evidence that global warming, deforestation, salinity, pollution and species loss are widespread. The scale at which these events are occurring is unlike what has ever occurred in the past as a result of natural processes. We cannot deny that these changes are anthropogenic. Because we have this capacity to make the world unliveable for ourselves and other beings, it is imperative that we change the way we use the Earth and the nonhuman beings that inhabit it. To do this we need also to conceive of the earth as more than just a resource for human beings, we need to change the way we think about the planet.

When I began to research for this paper I soon found myself drowning in a sea of complex political and philosophical theory. The more I read, the more confused I became! I felt a bit like I had fallen down Val Plumwood’s ‘Well of Discourse’, endlessly arguing to and fro and around theory, all the while sideways glancing “in dismay into the fearful and bottomless Abyss of Relativism”.

I attempted numerous strategies to try to find some commonality, some thread to lead me through the minefield of theory: I compiled lists, tables, mindmaps, even resorted to comparing indexes in a desperate hope of happening across some one sentence that might pull it all together. It was at that point, surrounded by reams of paper wasted to the end of such knowledge, that I had a kind of personal epiphany. If the theories I read were incoherent in the context of my own life, how could I expect that they would inspire others to change theirs? No matter how watertight the arguments, mere reason will not move anyone to action without feeling. The kind of feeling you might get from looking at that graph.

I have had occasion in the past to dwell on the philosophical framework of my life and realised that theory plays little part in our initial impetus to take up a cause, to devote ourselves to social change. It begins with a psychological state, of doubt and dissatisfaction that leads to a desire to change things. Theory often comes afterwards, and perhaps it is the role of academics and philosophers to articulate the premises of social change movements, but they do not start them.

There is no doubt that a lot of environmental activists are angry and despondent when they think about the current ecological crisis. These feelings come of frustration that our society does not regard nature with much esteem, and felt powerlessness in the face of a so-called democracy that seems much less fair than it could be. From whence does this sense of fairness stem? Why be fair? Why care about others, human or nonhuman, being treated fairly?

I guess some of the answers may be found in biology. Indeed socio-biologists seek to explain all human cultural phenomena in terms of survival of the species – and indeed a concern for the welfare of future generations of human beings fits this mould. This is a kind of “extended self-interest’’, entirely human-centred (or anthropocentric) in conception, that some self-styled ‘pragmatic’ environmental ethicists suggest is all we need to ensure ecological preservation. We know that if we continue our excessive resource abuse of the environment we will jeopardise the survival of future human beings. Not only will they suffer material deprivation, but also be psychologically diminished as we leave them a less biodiverse and less beautiful world than the one we were born into. Yet when we despoil wilderness, alter the global climate, manipulate and engineer nature to suit our purposes, we are doing more than merely decreasing our own chances of survival. As conscious, reasoning beings are we not capable of recognising the natural world as more than a resource for ourselves?

It was Scottish philosopher David Hume who observed that ethics begins with “esteem, respect, regard, kinship, affection and sympathy” (in Callicott 1989:198) In advocating social change in favour of environmental protection we are taking a moral position that requires respect for the biotic community as well as the human one. So I returned to the central premises of Deep Ecologists, Ecofeminists, and Ecoanarchists, as the foundation for my environmental ethic. These three theories all provide some aspect of the analysis of what is wrong with the system that has led to ecological destruction and the social injustice that accompanies it. With these theories in mind I will try to articulate what I think is a viable strategy for social change that will benefit the environment and promote social justice.

Roger Gottleib in The Ecological Community suggests that “the realisation that our manner of life leads so easily to the elimination of other species and a kind of slow suicide (for our species) should make us deeply suspicious of the beliefs our culture has held”. For this reason I consider the social change fundamental to achieving environmental outcomes to be primarily an ideological one.

Deep Ecology – what it is, what it is not

I feel obliged to dispel some of the misconceptions that have been circulated by opponents of deep ecology, or more succinctly ecocentrism. The primary tenet of ecocentrism is that the human species are an integral part of nature, not somehow above or better than nonhuman life, and that this has moral implications regarding our behaviour. This ‘biospherical egalitarianism’ then requires that all other entities that fit the criteria of moral considerability be included in deliberations over our use of the environment.

Perhaps the earliest conservationist to warrant the ecocentrist label is Aldo Leopold, famous for having written of his ‘Land Ethic’ in 1949. For Leopold the “integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community” was paramount. His approach, rating biotic integrity above individuals has had a pervasive influence on environmental policy in that quite often individuals and sometimes whole species are eradicated in the interests of preserving conservation values of other species or a protected area as a whole. However, such eradications are usually done for anthropocentric reasons.

Leopold’s approach is what is called ‘ethical holism’, in that it rates the community’s benefit over that of the individual. In my opinion this is not necessary nor moral, and it has led to charges of misanthropy against ecocentrists in general. As Ecofeminist Marti Kheel says, “what the wholists seem to forget…is that the whole consists of individual beings - beings with emotions, feelings and inclinations - and these too are part of the whole." (1985:22)

This is the stream of ecocentrism which has gotten the most criticism is that relying on what Robyn Eckersley calls ‘autopoietic value theory’. Autopoietism posits that because organisms or entities are self-renewing, they have intrinsic value and hence are morally considerable and should be allowed to fulfil their life-potential. This substantially widens the scope of who or what is morally considerable to the point many consider ridiculous – that, and that sometimes "killing of a wildflower…is just as much a wrong…as the killing of a human…in some situations it is a greater wrong" (Taylor in Nash 1989:155) However, Taylor does differentiate between wanton destruction and self-defence. Indeed, the radical exclamations of ecocentric wholists do nothing to promote the widespread acceptability of their ethic when they make statements about "siding with the bears" (John Muir in Nash), that injuries resulting from trees spikes "served them (the loggers) right for killing trees" (Gilliam in Manes 19:458). Biospheric holism takes no account of the rights of individuals except insofar as they are endangered. J Baird Callicott makes it absolutely clear in his earlier writings that he himself considers abstract entities like ‘species’ to have a “prima facie claim to preferential consideration” because diversity contributes to ‘stability’ (Callicott 1980: 325). He goes as far as to suggest that individuals in a biotic community are like the cells in a body – they have no importance except as parts of a functioning whole. The practical use of this analogy is questionable. The interests of a human or other organismic body can be defined in terms of interests. Individuals have goals, to reproduce themselves and to survive until this is accomplished, that ecosystems clearly do not.

Other ecocentrists consider a fundamental metaphysical shift in the way we perceive ourselves as humans and as individual ‘selves’ is supported by new findings in the physical sciences that suggest that matter is more space than solid, and as such there is no clear line between our self and the environment we find ourselves in. In a parallel with what ecoanarchists say about individualism being impossible and parasitic on community, so to our physical entity is seen to be more part of the physical community than was previously thought (see Table I).

It is this latter notion of the insuperability of individuals and wholes that I take to be a useful one in formulating a socio-environmental ethic.

Murray Bookchins main criticism of deep ecology in particular is that is relies too much on ‘intuition’ or ‘mysticism’ and is anti-rational. I contend, along with most Ecofeminist thinkers, that considering intuition as a valid source of knowledge is not the same as rejecting rationality, rather it is supplement to it. All so called factual and scientific claims about the world are ultimately based on concepts that are taken as given – concepts broadly identified by Kant as being apriori and only known through intuition: time, space, causality, infinity, even the process of logic is unprovable and must simply be accepted. By this Kant defines the limits of human reason.

Instead of appealing only to abstract universal or scientifically verifiable principles and by implication rejecting intuition, ecocentrists accept that when we think of environmental problems we FEEL something is wrong. These feelings are the starting point for change:

The emphasis of both philosophies [Ecocentrism and Ecofeminism] is not on abstract or ‘rational’ calculation of value but rather on the development of a new consciousness for all of life…they call for an inward transformation in order to attain outward change..(Kheel 1990:128) [my brackets]

Ecocentrists accept not only the evidence of ecological science that everything is interconnected at an ecological level, but extrapolate psychological and socio-cultural interconnections. As such, band-aid or end-of-pipe solutions to social or ecological problems are not enough.

Ecocentrism Redefined

It is the main concern of Ecocentrists, to change the way people perceive nonhuman nature and their place in the world. We consider nonhuman life to have value of and for itself – intrinsic value – and though, in my opinion, value may only be attributed by human beings who, as far as we know, are the only animals capable of reasoning, it does not exclude our appreciating the environment and everything in it as being valuable in ways other than ones that directly relate to the needs of human beings. Queensland’s own Nature Conservation Act (1992) mentions intrinsic value as one of the motivations for the act. In study done by the TWS in 1996, oft quoted by me, only 12% of respondents thought economic growth was more important than wilderness preservation. The study found that “there was strong and widespread agreement…(that) ‘wilderness areas should be preserved for their own sake, not because people want to use them’” (1999: 2)

Arne Naess redefined ecocentrism in his formulation of the Deep Ecology ethic in 1973. Naess allows scope for the rights of individuals in the "vital needs" clause: recognising that all life forms require the use of others for their survival, but that this should be minimal. Naess’ ethic has an important facet regarding personal growth and integrity which is often overlooked or outright rejected as mystical nonsense in interpretations. An important part of Naess philosophy is the idea of 'self-realisation'. Naess bases this in the traditions of "non-violence, non-injury and reverence for life" in Buddhism and other eastern religious traditions. In this sense, it goes beyond being a value-theory, and instead suggests that respect for nature is as much a psychological attitude, an ecological consciousness. Warwick Fox furthers this notion of self-realisation in his ‘transpersonal ecology’. Murray Bookchin, despite being a most vehement critic of Deep Ecology himself advocates consciousness change as a means to achieving ecological sustainability. In the same way that Fox suggests a reconfiguring of the meaning of self to include the biotic community (and even the cosmos), Bookchin advocates a reconfiguring of what it means to be an individual in the context of the wider community good, and Ecofeminists in the interpersonal.

Both Naess and Fox and some Ecofeminist thinkers ground their of Abraham Maslow’s model of personal growth and fulfilment, and Lawrence Kolhberg’s model of moral development. Maslow predicates the higher levels of self-realisation and ability to identify with the whole on self esteem and safety. So too Kohlberg’s stages 5, 6 and 7 which recognise the importance of community, the sacredness of life and ultimately identification with the cosmos is predicated on the same things. The ‘cosmic unity’ that Kohlberg and Fox talk about is in part a recognition of our place in evolution.

A Useful Ecofeminist Critique

I have mentioned some of the criticisms Ecofeminists have with Ecocentrism. Yet on many things they do agree. Feminists identify ‘androcentrism’ as the root of social inequity and Ecofeminists ‘androcentric anthropocentrism’ as the root of ecological inequity.

In a capitalist society individuals become rich only at the expense of others, and those others are predominantly women, though as we shall see with Ecoanarchism, the whole human community may suffer also. Women do most of the unpaid work in the world, including growing most of the food. When food production becomes industrialised men take over, but in the scheme of things, day-to-day subsistence food production is primarily done by women.

The individualist liberalism that is basic to a free market system is parasitic on women’s work. Cleaning, meal preparation, child rearing and care are predominantly done by women. This unpaid work provides the social support necessary for paid workers to devote themselves more fully to their ‘careers’. In a system where the economic is the highest value, only paid work is considered ‘real’ work. Everywhere men own most of the property and in some cultures also their wives and children. As such, women are often only valued in their ability to provide heirs and workers, the real work they do to sustain the family unit is undervalued. Some Ecofeminists identify this ‘sustaining’ role as a vital one to sustaining the earth: and this is perhaps borne out to some extent by the predominance of women in volunteer helping organisations, in particular green groups and animal rights groups.

Analysing the position of women in relation to nature Vandana Shiva links the use and abuse of nature with the violation and marginalisation of women, especially in the ‘majority’ world. Both stem from the primacy of economic development, a process she argues is more aptly ‘maledevelopment’. Social institutions like science, technology, politics, and the economy itself, are inherently exploitative: thus every area of mainstream human activity marginalizes and burdens both women and nature. There is only one strategy, Vandana Shiva suggests, to survival and liberation for nature, women and men: the ecological path of ‘harmony, sustainability and diversity’.

Shiva claims that women, in India in particular, have been both saviours and victims of maldevelopment. Many women find solidarity in identifying with the oppression and destruction of nature. Indeed, it is vital for them to do so, when it is of great importance to them to ensure the survival of their families. The personal impetus to protect nature felt by many women overlaps with the self-realisation aspect of Ecocentrist theory.

The Anarchist dilemma

Anarchism identifies oppression with hierarchy. Where one individual or institution has power over people, those people are liable to feel resentful, be uncooperative, or fearful. Ecoanarchists are convinced that by simply removing the hierachies that constitute the public sphere, individuals will be empowered enough to take life-affirming control of the way the world is used. Anarchism reifies a dialectic between the individual and the community in a way that affirms the value of both. An anarchist society, like that posited by Bookchin and his ilk supposes that individuals, given the freedom to make well-informed and valid decision that affect their lives will choose those options that are also communally beneficial. The obvious flaw in this schema is that there is no reason why they should choose communally beneficial options over self-serving ones, much less ecologically sound ones. That the latter is so is evidenced by the only long-running anarchist experiment in the Mondragon co-operatives in Spain.

Connections

I contend that despite the fact that Ecocentrism, Ecofeminism and Ecoanarchism define their premises as quite differently, they have important similarities also.

All three base their world view on a conception of what it means to be a human being that extends beyond of a narrowly defined autonomous self. Indeed, the idea that we can be autonomous is considered a myth, and all three recognise the autonomous liberalist idea of self to be supported by unacknowledged others: the biosphere, the work of women and the support structures of the volunteer or gift economy as constituted in the social network of community. All three see the realisation of the good of the individual as essential to and dependant on community. All three identify hierarchies of some kind to be the cause of social and ecological oppression (see table I)

The fact that social movements are recognising the unity of their oppressions is the driving force behind the anti corporate-globalisation movement such as that exhibited at the huge protests at Seattle, Washington, Melbourne, Prague, Quebec and the recent world-wide M1 protests. Such unity serves an important purpose in bringing together disparate groups, enhancing their understanding of one another and giving them more ideological force by recognising their similarities. This has been misunderstood or misconstrued by the mass media as being too disjointed to be effective and indeed even naïve.

This is the politics of difference Ecofeminists talk about, in action. Indeed, in accepting that others can be different and not wrong allows for a truly inclusive and participatory public sphere to develop. As we accept there are a plurality of ways to deal with environmental and social issues, in a local context, we must also realise that the only way to do this is through providing optimal conditions: of “mutual respect, openness, (and) scrutiny of (our) relationships with one another” which Dryzek postulates is the only way to create ‘truly public opinion, and crucially, the conditions for confrontation with state power.”

Strategies for Change

Paul Taylor, an Ecocentrist, defines his 'Respect for Nature' ethic as tripartite,

Ecocentrist and Ecofeminist thinkers have only suggested what form a grreen society should take. They have only provided a few guidelines as to how things need to change. But it is my conviction that the evidence for such change is manifest in many non governmental agencies, and even in some of the more progressive strategies of government itself.

Insofar as Ecoanarchism, Ecocentrism and Ecofeminism identify hierarchies of some kind as the root of oppression, a politics of change for the better would have to exhibit the dissolution of hierarchy. This is fundamental to a system that aims to be fair: As all are born ‘free and equal’ so shall they be treated.

Jim Dodge’s article on Bioregionalism describes the practice of social change as being equal parts resistance and renewal. There is considerable overlap in what constitutes resistance or renewal, for example involvement in alternative food co-ops serves both purposes (see Table II)

This table is by by no means exhausts the possibilities.

In trying to formulate strategies for change, I have largely stayed away from mainstream democratic processes. It is contrary to non-hierarchical decision making for proponents to get involved in politics through elections when democracy as practised in Western societies is a travesty of the ideal. Janet Biehl, a social ecologist, describes western democracy thus:

To label this system politics is a gross misnomer. It should more properly be called statecraft. Professionalised, manipulative, and immoral, these systems of elites and masses impersonate democracy…Far from empowering people as citizens, statecraft presupposes the abdication of citizen power… (Biehl 1997:1)

“Why think that non-official people could not arrange life for themselves…?” (Tolstoy)

Insofar as I advocate self-determination of social and political organisation, I think it would be contrary to prescribe any one way to go about it. However, there are any examples of self-determined communities who, acknowledged or not, operate under what might be called anarchist principles of non-hierarchical decision making, provide opportunities for women’s equal participation and nurture both each other and the environment.

The fact that people can arrange their own lives is in evidence everywhere: from P&C meetings to, green groups, to intentional communities, to struggles for self-government. People everywhere resent being told how to live by governments that are distant both physically and ideologically from their day to day lives.

There a myriad examples of people ‘arraigning their own lives’ that I might refer to. Uttarakhand, in the north of India, is well known for its various active social movements. It is the birthplace of the Chipko movement of non-violent resistance, possibly the Third World's best known and studied environmental struggle (‘chipko’ literally means embrace – hence tree-huggers) The Chipko Movement was the result of hundreds of locally autonomous groups. The main participants and organisers have been village women, acting to save their livelihood and their communities.

Uttarakhandi activists have also sought to combat the precipitous declines in the economic, social, and ecological integrity of the Himalayas with a host of campaigns that have met with varying levels of success.

Uttarakhand is a very poor and environmentally damaged region, yet the people have organised to solve their own problems where the government has either ignored them or been actively hostile. Protests for self government in 1994 resulted in the murder of unarmed men and women by police.

Local knowledge (and common sense!) realises that a massive dam in an earthquake zone is not a good policy, indeed cracks have already appeared. The electricity provided by the dam will not benefit the local community who have no money to purchase electricity. In addition the dam is perceived as a religious violation of the sacred Ganges River.

Like democracies everywhere, the experiences of the Uttarakhandi people are indicative of the inadequacy of a distant, centralised government working within an economic paradigm. The village of Dulmooth, is one example where the elected officials exercise a right to mark timber trees for felling by villagers in the forest department's reserved forest where villagers should have rights to use the forest also.

The forest is shared by at least three villages, and had become a brown patch till it came under the management of the locals about 20 years ago. Now, broad-leaved species give enough fodder and fuelwood for the villagers, and women spend a fraction of the time they spent earlier in collecting firewood. Women have also taken over the functions of the government officials -- controlling grazing, felling, lopping, guarding the forest, catching violators and confiscating their axes, prosecuting and imposing fines on them and settling disputes over the forest produce.

Elected officials are anyways bound by various legal provisions that hinder, rather than facilitate, autonomous decision-making. The women are, therefore, not keen to make theirs an elected body and apply for registration. "We manage quite well without the help of forest laws or district authorities,"

The lack of co-operation from government, forces local communities to fend for themselves, and like the Mondragon experience, this can often be very successful.

Part of the success of community action in Uttakarhand lies in fact that these people work where they live and are intimately familiar both with each other and their natural environment. As such, the very structure of their living environment is contributory to community.

In most Western societies the ‘cult of individualism’ has led to isolated living and working spaces. Although this is changing to some extent in the housing industry with trends towards semi detached town houses, the poor in many Western cities are still living in the huge, ‘depersonalised’ apartment towers (Saunders 1999: 28).

Part of the reconnection with nature and community in these places has been the establishment of community parks and gardens created and maintained by citizens, not councils. Since 1989, urban permaculture gardens in Havana, Cuba have liberated the poor from food shortages brought on by international sanctions, (now city gardens are providing half of Cuba’s food supply!) and attracted community activists from all over the wo