At the centre of an ideological controversy that is dominating the pages of scholarly American environmental journals is the philosophy that has come to be known as "Deep Ecology". Deep Ecology is of more than academic interest, since it has bearing on the question of what forms of politics are appropriate to the environmental movement. This question of "appropriate politics" is as urgent in Australia as it is in the States, and the political implications of the Deep Ecology philosophy need to be addressed by environmentalists. Not that Australian environmentalists are unaware of Deep Ecology: in recent years there have been two well attended conferences focussing on Deep Ecology held in Melbourne alone. But with the "Green Wars' - as they have been called - in full swing in the States, the time for mature ideogical self-examination on the part of the Australian environmental movement here has arrived. Such self-examination, if undertaken responsibly, can only sustain and deepen a well-established movement.

It is ironical that Deep Ecology should be a source of controversy and violent debate, since it is a philosophy of unparalleled gentleness. That it should be taken up as a rationale for an organized extremist movement, as appears to be the case in America, is incongruous, since it is a philosophy which calls for a high degree of personal reflectiveness and personal empowerment, and is for that reason inimical to the structures of mass mobilisation. And that its boundaries should be contested by territorial academics is poignant, because it is a frankly open-ended philosophy, content to metamorphose eventually into something new, a new theory with a new set of principles and, presumably, a new name.

The ideas of Deep Ecology, however, at their present stage of theoretical development, are not new. I was reminded of this a few days ago as I wandered through the William Ricketts' Sanctuary at Mount Dandenong, in the Dandenong Ranges, near Melbourne. Here is a veritable monument to Deep Ecology: all the sculptures contained in the sanctuary, are according to William Ricketts, the 89 year old artist, devoted to one idea, and one idea only: reverence for life for "the unity of spirit - man - and nature, and all that is in the kingdom of nature". Ricketts' sculptures show Aboriginal people rising out of rocks and ferns, their humanity a spiritual manifestation of this ancient land. And this sense of our unity with Nature - which is the essence of Deep Ecology - has been the perennial refrain, not only of artists and poets within our own culture, and of Aboriginal people, but of ancient and primal peoples all over the earth. Perhaps the American Indian leader, Chief Seattle, expressed these sentiments best:

"What are humans without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, humans would die soon from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to humankind . All things are connected . . .

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. If humans spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know: the earth does not belong to humanity- humanity belongs to the earth. This we know . . . All things are connected like the blood that unites one family. All things are connected."

However, like all simple ideas, the ideas of Deep Ecology become complicated when we try to fit them into a philosophical framework. And their simplicity belies their radical significance, for they turn the - already complicated - presuppositions of traditional Western thinking upside down. It is not possible, then, to explain these ideas in a short space. In some ways it is dangerous to try do do so, because the attempt might induce false understandings, which can in turn lead to all kinds of false political twists and turns. The most that I can hope to do in a brief review is to signpost the ideas in a general way, and entrust the actual intellectual journey to the reader.

The first signpost to Deep Ecology that I would erect would have to point to nothing short of a new worldview. In this new worldview, Nature appears not in the traditional Western way, as a collection of individual plants, animals and objects, but as a seamless whole, in which all individuals are inextricably interconnected with others. On this view a particular individual may not be identified simply in terms of its physical structure. Its identity is rather a function of its relations to other individuals. To take a local example, how would we define an echidna? Not, according to Deep Ecology, merely in terms of its anatomical features - its spikes and long snout, etc. We would also have to referto its relation to ants. Echidnas and ants co-determine each other: their identities are inextricable. So it is at all levels of Nature, according to the Deep Ecology way of seeing things. Even atoms and elementary particles are not separate units of matter, but are constituted by their relations within a wider energy field.

Within this framework of interconnectedness I would offer a second signpost, one which points to the notion of intrinsic value. This is the idea that all beings have value in their own right, irrespective of whether they have any 'use value' for us. And along with this idea of intrinsic value, we find the further idea that all beings are equal in value - that there are no 'higher' and 'lower' life forms in Nature, but that the very concept of rank is political in origin, and inappropriate when projected onto Nature.

This refusal to rank life forms one above another is one of the profound ideas of Deep Ecology, but it is an idea which can really only be understood in the context of feminist theory. For it has been one of the central insights of feminism that the impulse to arrange everything in hierarchical orders does not reflect an objectively stratified social or natural reality, but rather serves to legitimate the claim of the self-styled "higher" to dominate and control the "lower".

It is often assumed that if we concede that we are not in fact a "higher" life form then we will not be entitled to defend ourselves and to pursue our own interests at the expense of other forms of life. But this does not follow. Self-preservation is the business of any organism and so, as organisms, we do not need any special justification for pursuing our own interests. We are entitled to use other organisms not because we are more important than they are, but because we need them in order to maintain ourselves. However, this justification only entitles us to use other organisms to the extent that they are required for the satisfaction of our vital needs. Recognising this is consistent with our recognition of the intrinsic worth of all beings. The upshot is that Deep Ecology enjoins us, not to take a totally 'hands-off' approach to Nature, but to 'tread lightly' on the earth, taking only what we truly need, and respecting the needs of other beings. We are not called to stand by helplessly when snakes, rats, redbacks, etc., threaten our vital interests or those of our children. But we are called upon to respect and empathize with other beings, and refrain from interfering with them when they are not directly threatening our vital interests.

The signpost that points to the heart of Deep Ecology is the one that directs us to a new conception of the self. When we understand the interconnectedness of everything in Nature, we realize that countless beings walk within us, that Nature is our inexhaustible mirror, that human-ness is a function of a wider system. To realize this is to begin to let go of the familiar individual self or ego, and to experience a sense of identification with wider circles of life. Genuinely to experience this "falling in love outward", as the American poet Robinson Jeffers put it, is to experience a profound personal transformation. It is this kind of personal transformation on the part of individuals which is the ultimate "political" goal of Deep Ecology. In pointing to this personal 'way', Deep Ecology echoes another ancient spiritual tradition, that of Taoism:

"To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one's self and others."

Deep Ecology, then, is very personal in its significance. It's implication is that long-term political change will follow on the heels of a change in consciousness that can only be effected at the personal level - through people coming into touch with the deeper dimensions of the self. In this respect Deep Ecology directs us not to seek external political power, but to locate our source of 'power-from-within', a power drawn from the energies of the elements and life-forms with which we are inter-related.

The idea is that when people are internally charged in this way, when they experience the power that may be drawn from their interconnectedness with all of life, they will withdraw their support from destructive and exploitative social structures. They will instead begin to channel their energies into positive projects within their own personal spheres of influence. It is in this sense that the idea of an organized movement is inimical to Deep Ecology. And it is for this reason that there can be no prescribed goals for Deep Ecology - there are as many goals as there are personal initiatives issuing from people who have reclaimed power over their own realities and are prepared to take appropriate action in their own lives.

The role of Deep Ecology in the environment movement then is perhaps that of a consciousness raising tool. The organized environmental movement exists to serve urgent, immediate goals - saving this particular tract of remnant vegetation from that particular developer, etc. These short term goals are of the utmost importance, and they are entirely consistent with the long-term, deeper political goals of Deep Ecology. But Deep Ecology calls all those who feel concern for Nature not only to "save the world" through an organized movement but to discover that deeper selfhood which is already wholly committed to serving and celebrating Nature in the unique terms of each individual's life.

It is often thought that those who are for Nature in this unqualified way must be against humanity. This is a complete misunderstanding. Those who take up the banner of Deep Ecology as a pretext for misanthropy have missed the point. Humanity is itself a manifestation, a cryptic signature, of Nature, as intrinsically valuable and as "innocent", in its fashion, as any other form of life. A Deep Ecologist may strive to adjust the relationship between human beings and the rest of Nature, in order to lessen the human impact on the biosphere, but such adjustments must always be consistent with a principle of respect for human life. Hostility towards humanity ultimately translates, within the framework of Deep Ecology, into hostility towards Nature.

One form of political action which may resolve our sometimes conflicting loyalties to non-human Nature and to humankind is direct action in defense of specific threatened environments. Such direct actions often place the safety, if not the life, of the protestors at risk: protestors may tie themselves to threatened trees, or bury themselves in the path of bulldozers. This takes courage, is ethically unimpeachable and politically effective, as Gandhi demonstrated. There is a world of difference between this kind of direct action which threatens no-one but the protestors themselves, and actions which threaten others. The transition from the first kind of action to the second marks the ethically momentous shift from non-violent resistance, which betokens a deep respect for both human and nonhuman life, and violence, which, in placing other values above that of human life, may open the gate to fascism.

Misanthropy cannot coexist with an enlightened love of our living planet. Those who are really in touch with the "Great Spirit" in Nature show a largesse of heart which expresses itself in a robust love of people as well as of other beings. Guboo Ted Thomas, an Aboriginal elder of the Yuin nation, taught me this. Guboo has been setting up Renewal of the Dreaming camps around Australia, teaching people to become attuned to the land and the powers inherent in it. But the main thing that Guboo taught me, by his example, was that the inner meaning of the Dreaming is simply this love of the "Great Spirit", which is expressed not only in a love of the land, but in the love which binds Aboriginal people to each other. It is for this reason that the Dreaming stays alive even in the midst of the ugliness and disenchantment of the inner cities, whereverAboriginal people live. Even when the myths and rituals that anthropologists associate with the notion of the Dreaming are long since forgotten or destroyed, the Dreaming survives in the bonds which hold the people together. And this is the kind of "love of Nature" that Deep Ecology, stripped to its essentials, also teaches.

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