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the U.S., but with a radically dissimilar cultural andsocial history.My treatment of deep ecology is primarily his-

torical and sociological, rather than philosophical, innature. Specifically, I examine the cultural rooted-ness of a philosophy that likes to present itself inuniversalistic terms. I make two main arguments:first, that deep ecology is uniquely American, anddespite superficial similarities inrhetorical style, thesocial and political goals of radical environmental-ism in other cultural contexts (e.g., West Germanyand India) are quite different; second, that the socialconsequences of putting deep ecology into practiceon a worldwide basis (what its practitioners are. aiming for) are very grave indeed.

Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique 515

71.Radical American Environmentalism andWilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique _R ama ch an dr a G u ha

Ce~trefor Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India. This essay waswntten while the author was a visiting lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Stud-i es , H e is grateful to Mike Bell, Tom Birch, BillBurch, BillCronen, Diane Mayerfeld, David Rothen-berg,Kirkpatrick Sale, Joel Seton, Tim Weiskel, and Don Worster for helpful comments.EnVironmenta l Ethics, Vol. 11, No.1 (Spring 1989),71-83. Reprinted by permission.

IntroductionThe respected radical journalist Kirkpatrick

Salerecently celebrated "the passion of a new andgrowing movement that has become disenchantedwith the environmental establishment and has inrecentyears mounted a serious and sweeping attackon it-style, substance, systems, sensibilities andall." The vision of those whom Sale calls the "NewEcologists"-and what Irefer to in this article asdeep ecology-iS a compelling one. Decrying thenarrowly economic goals of mainstream environ-mentalism,this new movement aims at nothing lessthana philosophical and cultural revolution inhu-manattitudes toward nature. In contrast to the con-ventional lobbying efforts of environmental pro-fessionalsbased in Washington, it proposes a mili-tantdefence of "Mother Earth," an unflinching op-position to human attacks on undisturbed wilder-ness.With their goals ranging from the spiritual tothepolitical, the adherents of deep ecology span awide spectrum of the American environmentalmovement. 'As Sale correctly notes, this emergingstrand has in a matter of a few years made its pres-ence felt in a number of fields: from academic phi-losophy (as in the journal En vi ro nment al E t h ic s) topopular environmentalism (for example, the groupEarthFirstl), '

In this article Idevelop a critique of deep ecol-og y from the perspective of a sympathetic outsider.Icritique deep ecology not as a general (or even afootsoldier) in the continuing struggle between theghostsofGifford Pinchot and JohnMuir over controlofthe U.S. environmental movement, but as an out-sider to these battles. Ispeak admittedly as a parti-san,but of the environmental movement in India, aCOuntrywith an ecological diversity comparable to

II. The Tenets of Deep EcologyWhile Iam aware that the term deep eco logy wascoined by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess,

this article refers specifically to the American vari-ant. 2 Adherents of the deep ecological perspective inthis country, while arguing intensely among them-selves over its political and philosophical implica-tions, share some fundamental premises abouthuman-nature interactions. As Iee it, the definingcharacteristics of deep ecology are fourfold.

First, deep ecology argues that the environ-mental movement must shift from an "anthropocen-tric" to a ''biocentric'' perspective. In many respects,an acceptance ofthe primacy of this distinction con-stitutes the litmus test of deep ecology. A consider-able effort is expended by deep ecologists inshowing that the dominant motif in Western phi-losophy has been anthropocentric-i.e., the beliefthat man and his works are the center of the uni-verse-and conversely, in identifying those lonely


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516 Chapter 6:Environmental Problems and Policiesthinkers (Leopold, Thoreau, Muir, Aldous Huxley,Santayana, etc.) who, in assigning man a more hum-ble place in the natural order, anticipated deep eco-logical thinking. In the political realm, meanwhile,establishment environmentalism (shallow ecology)is chided for casting its arguments in human-cen-tered terms. Preserving nature, the deep ecologistssay, has an intrinsic worth quite apart from anybenefits preservation may convey to future humangenerations. The anthropocentric-biocentric distinc-tion is accepted as axiomatic by deep ecologists, itstructures their discourse, and much of'the presentdiscussions remains mired within it.

The second characteristic of deep ecology is itsfocus on the preservation of unspoilt wilder-ness-and the restoration of degraded areas. to amore pristine condition-to the relative (and some-times absolute) neglect of other issues on the envi-ronmental agenda. I later identify the cultural rootsand portentous consequences of this obsession withwilderness. For the moment, let me indicate threedistinct sources from which it springs. Historically,it represents a playing out of the preservationist(read radical) and utilitarian (read reformist) dichot-omy that has plagued American environmentalismsince the tum ofthe century. Morally, itis an impera-tive that follows from the biocentric perspective;other species ofplants and animals, and nature itself,have an intrinsic right to exist. And finally, the pres-ervation of wilderness also turns on a scientific ar-gument-viz., the value of biological diversity instabilizing ecological regimes and inretaining a genepool for future generations. Truly radical policy pro-posals have been put forward by deep ecologists onthe basis of these arguments. The influential poetGary Snyder, for example, would like to see a 90percent reduction in human populations to allow arestoration of pristine environments, while othershave argued forcefully that a large portion of theglobe must be immediately cordoned off from hu-man beings,"

Third, there is a widespread invocation of East-ern spiritual traditions as forerunners of deep ecol-ogy. Deep ecology, it is suggested, was practicedboth by major religious traditions and at a morepopular level by "primal" peoples in non-Westernsettings. This complements the search for an authen-ticlineage in Western thought. Atone level, the taskis to recover those dissenting voices within theJudeo-Christian tradition; at another, to suggest that

religious traditions inother cultures are, in'contrast,dominantly if not exclusively ''biocentric'' in theirorientation. This coupling of (ancient) Eastern and(modern) ecological wisdom seemingly helps c0n-solidate the claim that deep ecology is a philosophyof universal Significance.

Fourth, deep ecologists, whatever their internaldifferences, share the belief that they are the "leadingedge" of the environmental movement. As the p0.-larity of the shallow / deep and anthropocentric/bio-centric distinctions makes clear, they see themselvesas the spiritual, philosophical, and political van-guard of American and world environmentalism.

III. Toward a CritiqueAlthough I analyze each of these tenets inde-

pendently, it is important to recognize, as deepecologists are fond of remarking in reference to na-ture, the interconnectedness and unity of these indi-vidual themes.

(1) Insofar as it has begun to act as a check onman' 5 arrogance and ecological hubris, the transi-tion from an anthropocentric (human-centered) to abiocentric (humans as only one element in the eco-system) view in both religious and scientific tradi-tions is only to be welcomed.' What is unacceptableare the radical conclusions drawn by deep ecologyin particular, that intervention in nature should beguided primarily by the need to preserve biotic in -tegrity rather than by the needs ofhumans. The latterfor deep ecologists is anthropocentric, the formerbiocentric. This dichotomy is, however, of very littleuse in understanding the dynamics of environ-mental degradation. The two fundamental ecological problems facing the globe are (iover-consumption by the industrialized world andby urban elites in the Third World and (ii) growingmilitarization, both ina short-term sense (i.e., ongoing regional wars) and in a long-term sense (l.e.,thearms race and the prospect of nuclear annihilation).Neither of these problems has any tangible connection to the anthropocentric-biocentric distinctionIndeed, the agents of these processes would barelycomprehend this philosophical dichotomy. Thproximate causes of the ecologically wasteful characteristics of industrial society and of militarizationare far more mundane; at an aggregate level, thdialectic of economic and political structures, and aa micro-level, the life-style choices of individuals


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Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique 517These causes cannot be reduced, whatever the levelo f analysis, to a deeper anthropocentric attitude to-ward nature; on the contrary, by constituting a gravethreat to human survival, the ecological degrada-tionthey cause does not even serve the best inter-ests of human beings! If my identification of themajordangers to the integrity of the natural worldiscorrect, invoking the bogy of anthropocentricismis at best irrelevant and at worst a dangerous obfus-cation.

(2) If the above dichotomy is irrelevant, theemphasis on wilderness is positively harmful whenapplied to the Third World. If in the U.S. the preser-vationist/utilitarian division isseen as mirroring theconflictbetween "people" and "interests," in coun-tries such as India the situation is very nearly thereverse.Because India is a long settled and denselypopulated country in which agrarian populationshavea finely balanced relationship with nature, thesetting aside of wilderness areas has resulted in adirecttransfer of resources from the poor to the rich.Thus,Project Tiger, a network ofparks hailed by theinternational conservation community as an out-standing success, sharply posits the interests of thetiger against those of poor peasants living in andaround the reserve. The designation of tiger reserveswas made possible only by the physical displace-ment of existing villages and their inhabitants; theirmanagement requires the continuing exclusion ofpeasants and livestock. The initial impetus for set-tingup parks for the tiger and other large mammalssuch as the rhinoceros and elephant came from twosocialgroups, first, a class of ex-hunters turned con-servationists belonging mostly to the declining In-dian feudal elite and second, representatives ofinternational agencies, such as the World WildlifeFund (WWF) and the International Union for theConservation of Nature and Natural Resources([UeN), seeking to transplant the American systemof national parks onto Indian soil. Inno case havethe needs of the local population been taken intoaccount, and as in many parts of Africa, the desig-. nated wildlands are managed primarily for thebenefit of rich tourists. Until very recently, wild-lands preservation has been identified with environ-mentalism by the state and the conservation elite; inconsequence, environmental problems that impingefarmore directly on the lives of the poor-e.g., fuel,fodder, water shortages, soil erosion, and air and

water pollution-have not been adequately ad-dressed.s.,Deep ecology provides, perhaps unwittingly, a

justification for the continuation ofsuch narrow andinequitable conservation practices under a newlyacquired radical guise. Increasingly, the interna-tional conservation elite is using the philosophical,moral, and scientific arguments used by deep ecolo-gists in advancing their wilderness crusade. A strik-ing but by no means atypical example is the recentplea by a prominent American biologist for the take-over of large portions of the globe by the author andhis scientific colleagues. Writing in a prestigiousscientific forum, the Annual Review of Ecology andSystemJl tics, Daniel Janzen argues that only biolo-gists have the competence todecide how the tropicallandscape should be used. As "the representativesof the natural world," biologists are "incharge of thefuture of tropical ecology," and only they have theexpertise and mandate to "determine whether thetropical agroscape is to be populated only by hu-mans, their mutualists, commensals, and parasites,or whether it will also contain some islands of thegreater nature-the nature that spawned humans,yet has been vanquished by them." Janzen exhortshis colleagues to advance their territorial claims onthe tropical world more forcefully, warning that thevery existence of these areas is at stake: "if biologistswant a tropics in which to biologize, they are goingto have to buy it with care, energy, effort, strategy,tactics, time, and cash.',6This frankly imperialist manifesto highlightsthe multiple dangers of the preoccupation with wil-derness preservation that is characteristic of deepecology. As I have suggested, it seriously com-pounds the neglect by the American movement offar more pressing environmental problems withinthe Third World. But perhaps more importantly, andin a more insidious fashion, italso provides an im-petus to the imperialist yearning of Western biolo-gists and their financial sponsors, organizationssuch as the WWF and !UCN. The wholesale transferof a movement culturally rooted in American con-servation history can only result in the social uproot-ing ofhuman populations in other parts ofthe globe.

(3) I come now to the persistent invocation ofEastern philosophies as antecedent in point of timebut convergent in their structure with deep ecology.Complex and internally differentiated religious tra-


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Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Th i r d World Critique 519therefore, like the positivists, but for just theopposite reason, have a vested interest insee-ing that the Orientalist view of India as 'spiri-tual,' 'mysterious,' and 'exotic' isperpetuated,"(4) How radical, finally, are the deep ecologists?Notwithstanding their self-image and strident

rhetoric (in which the label" shallow ecology" has anopprobrium similar to that reserved for "socialdemocratic" by Marxist-Leninists), even ~thin theAmerican context their radicalism is limited and itmanifests itself quite differently elsewhere.

To my mind, deep ecology is best viewed as aradical trend within the wilderness preservation'movement. Although advancing philosophicalrather than aesthetic arguments and encouragingpolitical militancy rather than negotiation, its prac-tical emphasls=-viz., preservation of unspoilt na-ture-is virtually identical. For the mainstreammovement, the function of wilderness is to providea temporary antidote to modem civilization. As aspecial institution within an industrialized society,the national park "provides an opportunity for res-pite, contrast, contemplation, and affirmation ofval-ues for those who live most of their lives in theworkaday world."!" Indeed, the rapid increase invisitations to the national parks in postwar Americais a direct consequence of economic expansion. Theemergence of a popular interest in wilderness sites,the historian Samuel Hays points out, was "not athrowback to the primitive, but an integral part ofthe modem standard of living as people sought toadd new 'amenity' and 'aesthetic' goals and desiresto their earlier preoccupation with necessities andconveniences,"!'

Here, the enioyrnent ofnature is an integral partof the consumer society. The private automobile(and the life style ithas spawned) isin many respectsthe ultimate ecological villain, and an untouchedwilderness the prototype of ecological harmony; yet,for most Americans it is perfectly consistent to drivea thousand miles to spend a holiday in a nationalpark. They possess a vast, beautiful, and sparselypopulated continent and are also able to draw uponthe natural resources of large portions of the globeby virtue oftheir economic and political dominance.In consequence, America can simultaneously enjoythe material benefits of an expanding economy andthe aesthetic benefits of unspoilt nature. The twopoles of "wilderness" and "civilization" mutuallycoexist in an intemally coherent whole, and philoso-

phers of both poles are assigned a prominent placeinthis culture. Paradoxically as it may seem, itis noaccident that Star Wars technology and deep ecologyboth find their fullest expression in that leadingsector of Western civilization, California.Deep ecology runs parallel to the consumersociety without seriously questioning its ecologicaland socio-political basis. Inits celebration of Ameri-can wilderness, it also displays an uncomfortableconvergence with the prevailing climate ofnational-ism in the American wilderness movement. Forspokesmen such as the historian Roderick Nash, thenational park system is America's distinctive cul-tural contribution to the world, reflective not merelyof its economic but of its phi losophica l and ecologi-cal maturity as well. In what Walter Lippman called.the American century, the "American invention ofnational parks" must be exported worldwide. Be-traying an economic determinism that would makeeven a Marxist shudder, Nash believes that environ-mental preservation is a "full stomach" phenome-non that is confined to the rich, urban, andsophisticated. Nonetheless, he hopes that "the lessdeveloped nations may eventually evolve economi-cally and intellectually to the point where naturepreservation is more than a business."12

The error which Nash makes (and which deepecology in some respects encourages) is to equateenvironmental protection with the protection ofwil-derness. This is a distinctively American notion,borne out of a unique social and environmentalhistory. The archetypal concerns of radical environ-mentalists in other cultural contexts are in fact quitedifferent. The German Greens, for example, haveelaborated a devastating critique of industrial soci-ety which turns on the acceptance ofenvironmentallimits to growth. Pointing to the intimate links be-tween industrialization, militarization, and con-quest, the Greens argue that economic growth in theWest has historically rested on the economic andecological exploitation of the Third World. RudolfBahro is characteristically blunt

The working class here [inthe West] is the rich-est lower class in the world. And ifIook atthe problem from the point of view of thewhole of humanity, not just from that ofEurope, then I must say that the metropolitanworking class is the worst exploiting class inhistory .. .. What made poverty bearable ineighteenth- or nineteenth-century Europe was


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520 Chapter 6: Environmental Problems and Policiesthe prospect of escaping it through exploita-tion of the periphery. But this is no longer apossibility, and continued industrialism intheThird WorJd will mean poverty for whole gen-erations and hunger for millions."Here the roots of global ecological problems lie

in the disproportionate share of resources consumedby the industrialized countries as a whole and theurban elite within the Third World. Since itis impos-sible to reproduce an industrial monoculture world-wide, the ecological movement in the West mustbegin by cleaning up its own act. The Greens advo-cate the creation of a "no growth" economy, to beachieved by scaling down current (and clearly un-sustainable) consumption levels.14 This radical shiftin consumption and production patterns requiresthe creation of alternate economic and politicalstructures-smaller in scale and more amenable tosocial participation-but it rests equally on a shift incultural values. The expansionist character ofmod-ern Western man will have to give way to an ethic ofrenunciation and self-limitation, in which spiritualand communal values play an increasing role insustaining social life. This revolution in cultural val-ues, however, has as its point of departure an under-standing of environmental processes quite differentfrom deep ecology.

Many elements of the Green program find astrong resonance in countries such as India, where ahistory of Western colonialism and industrial devel-opment has benefited only a tiny. elite while exactingtremendous social and envirorunental costs. Theecological battles presently being fought in Indiahave-as their epicenter the conflict over nature be-tween-the subsistence and largely rural sector andthe vastly more powerful commercial-industrial sec-tor. Perhaps the most celebrated of these battlesconcerns the Chipko (Hug the Tree) movement apeasant movement against deforestation in the Hi-malayan foothills. Chipko is only one of severalmovements that have sharply questioned the non-sustainable demand being placed on the land andvegetative base by urban centers and industry.These include opposition to large dams by displacedpeasants, the conflict between small artisan fishingand large-scale trawler fishing for export, the coun-trywide movements against commercial forest op-erations, and opposition to industrial pollutionamong downstream agricultural and fishing com-munities.P

Two features distinguish these environmentalmovements from their Western counterparts. Firs~for the sections of society most critically affected byenvironmental degradation-poor and landlesspeasants, women, and tribals-it is a question ofsheer survival, not of enhancing the quality of life.Second, and as a consequence, the envir~nmentalsolutions they articulate deeply involve questions ofequity as well as economic and political redistribu-tion. Highlighting these differences, a leading Indianenvironmentalist stresses that "environmental pro-tection per se is of least concern to most of thesegroups. Their main concern is about the use of theenvironment and who should benefit from it."16They seek to wrest control of nature away from thestate and the industrial sector and place it in thehands of rural communities who live within thatenvironment but are increasingly denied access toit.These communities have far more basic needs, theirdemands on the environment are far less intense,and they can draw upon a reservoir of cooperativesocial institutions and local ecological knowledge inmanaging the "commons" -forests, grasslands, andthe waters-on a sustainable basis. If colonial andcapitalist expansion has both accentuated social in-equalities and signaled a precipitous fall in ecologi-cal wisdom, an alternate ecology must rest on analternate society and polity as well.This brief overview of German and Indian en-vironmentalism has some major implications fordeep ecology. Both German and Indian environ-mental traditions allow for a greater integration ofecological concerns with livelihood and work. Theyalso place a greater emphasis on equity and socialjustice (both within individual countries and on aglobal scale) on the grounds that in the absence 0 1social regeneration environmental regeneration hasvery little chance of succeeding. Finally, and perhapsmost Significantly, they have escaped the preoccu-pation with wilderness preservation so charac-teristic of American cultural and environmentalhistory."

IV.AHomi~yIn 1958, the economist J . K.Galbraith referred to

overconsumption as the unasked question of theAmerican conservation movement. There is amarked selectivity, he wrote, "in the conservation-ist's approach to materials consumption. If we a r e


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Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique 521concerned about our great appetite for materials, itis plausible to s e ek to increase the supply, to de-crease waste, to make better use of the stocks avail-able, and to develop substitutes. But what of theappetite itself? Surely this is the ultimate source ofthe problem. Ifit continues its geometric course, willit not one day have to be restrained? Yet in theliterature of the resource problem this is the forbid-den question. Over it hangs a nearly total silence."lS

The consumer economy and society have ex:panded tremendously in the three decades sinceGalbraith penned these words; yet his criticisms arenearly as valid today. Iave said "nearly," for there.are some hopeful Signs. Within the environmentalmovement several dispersed groups are working todevelop ecologically benign technologies and to en-courage less wasteful life styles. Moreover, outsidethe self-defined boundaries of American environ-mentalism, opposition to the permanent war econ-omy is being carried on by a peace movement thathas a distinguished history and impeccable moraland political credentials.

Itisprecisely these (to my mind, most hopeful)components: of the American social scene that aremissing from deep ecology, In their widely noticedbook, Bil l Devall and George Sessions make no men-tion of militarization or the movements for peace,while activists whose practical focus is on develop-ing ecologically responsible life styles (e.g.,WendellBerry) are derided as "falling short of deep ecologi-cal awareness.v'" A truly radical ecology in theAmerican cOJ).textought to work toward a synthesisof the appropriate technology, alternate life style,and peace movements.e' Bymaking the (largely spu-rious) anthropocentric-biocentric distinction centralto the debate, deep ecologists may have appropri-ated the moral high ground, but they are at the sametime doing a serious disservice to American andglobal environmentalism.U

Notes1. Kirkpatrick Sale, "The Forest for the Trees: Can To-

day's Environmentalists Tell the Difference,"Mo t he r J on es 11, no. 8 (November 1986): 26.

2. One of the major criticisms I make in this essay con-cerns deep ecology s lack of concern with inequali-ties within human society. In the article in which hecoined the term d e e p ecology, Naess himself ex-presses concerns about inequalities between andWithin nations. However, his concern with social

cleavages and their impact on resource utilizationpatterns and ecological destruction is not very vis-ible in the later writings of deep ecologists. SeeArne Naess, "Ihe Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary," In qu ir y 1 6(1973): 96 (Iam grateful to Tom Birch for this refer:ence).

3. Gary Snyder, quoted in Sale, "The Forest for theTrees," p. 32. See a lso Dave Foreman, "AModestProposal for a Wilderness System," 'N h ole E a rth R e -view, no. 53 (Winter 1986-87): 42-45.

4. See, for example, Donald Worster, Na tu r e' s E c on -omy: Th e Roo ts o f E c ol og y (San Francisco: Sierra ClubBooks,l977).

. .-. 5. See Centre for Science and Environment, I nd ia : Th e. .' S ta te of the Environment 1982 : A C it iz en s R ep or t (New

Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1982);R. Sukumar, "Elephant-Man Conflict in Kar-nataka," in Cecil Saldanha, ed., Th e S ta te o f Kar-na ta ka 's Env ironmen t (BangaIore: Centre forTaxonomic Studies, 1985). For Africa, see the bril-liant analysis by Helge Kjekshus, Eco logy Con tro la nd ECO I 'I om icDe v el opmen t i n Ea st A f ri ca n H i st or y

. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).6. Daniel Janzen, " Th e Future of Tropical Ecology,"

A n nu al R e vie w o f E co lo gy a nd S ys te ma tic s 17 (1986):305-06; emphasis added.

7. Robert Aitken Roshi , "Gandhi, Dogen, and DeepEcology," reprinted as appendix C in Bill Devalland George Sessions, Deep Ec ol og y : L iv in g a s i jN a -ture Mattered (Salt Lake at)': Peregrine Smith Books,1985).For Gandhi's own views on social reconstruc-tion. see the excellent three-volume collection editedby Raghavan Iyer, The Mora/and P ol it ic al W r it in gs o fM a ha tm a G a nd hi (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986-87).

8. Michael Cohen. The Pathless Way (Madison: Univer-sity of Wisconsin Press, 1984), p. 120.

9. Ronald Inden, "Orientalist Constructions of India,"Mo d er n A s ia n S tu d ie s 20 (1986): 442. Inden draws in-spiration from Edward Said's forceful polemic, Ori-enialism (New York: Basic Books, 1980). Itmust benoted, however, that there is a salient difference be-tween Western perceptions ofMiddle Eastern andFar Eastern cultures, respectively. Due perhaps tothe long history of Christian conflict with Islam,Middle Eastern cultures (as Said documents) areconsistently presented in pejorative terms. The jux-taposition of hostile and worshiping attitudes thatInden talks of applies only to Western attitudes to-ward Buddhist and Hindu societies.

10. Joseph Sax,Moun ta in s W i th o u t Han drai ls : R e fl ec ti on son the NQt iona l Pa rks (Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1980), p. 42. 0. also Peter Schmi t t ,


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522 Chapter 6: Environmental Problems and PoliciesB ac k to N atu re : Th e A rcadian M yth in U rb an A merica(New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), and Al-fred Runte, N atio na l P ark s: T he A mer ica n E xp erienc e(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979).11 . Samuel Hays, "From Conservation to Environment:Environmental Politics in the United States sinceWorld War Two," E nv ir on me nta l R ev ie w 6 (1982): 21.S ee also the same author's book entitled Beauty ,H ea lth lind P erm ane nce : E nv ir onm enta l P olitics in th eU n it ed S ta te s, 1955-85 (New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1987).

12. Roderick Nash, W ilderness and th e A merican M ind,3rd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).

13. Rudolf Bahro, F rom R ed to G reen (London: VersoBooks,1984).14. From time to time, American scholars have them-

selves criticized these imbalances in consumptionpatterns. In the 1950s, William Vogt made thecharge that the United States, with one-sixteenth ofthe world's population. was utilizing one-third ofthe globe's resources. (Vogt, cited in E.F. Murphy,N ature, B ureaucracy and th e R ule of Property [Amster-dam: North Holland, 1977, p. 29]). More recently,Zero Population Growth has estimated that each.American consumes thirty-nine times as many re-sources as an Indian. See Ch ri st ia n S ci en ce Mon it or , 2March 1987.

15. For an excellent review, see Anil Agarwa1.andSunita Narain, eds., In dia : T he S ta te o f th e E nv iro n-ment 1984-85: A C itizens R eport (New Delhi: Centrefor Science and Environment, 1985).Cf. alsoRamachandra Guha, T he U nq uiet W oo ds : E co lO gica lC ha ng e a nd P ea sa n t R es ista nce in th e In dia n H im ala ya(Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcom-ing).

16. Ani! Agarwal, "Human-Nature Interactions in aThird World Country," Th e Environmentalist 6, no. 3(1986): 167.

17. One strand in radical American environmentalism,the bioregional movement, by emphasizing agreater involvement with the bioregion people in-habit, does indirectly challenge consumerism. How-

ever, as yet bioregionalism has hardly raised thequestions of equity and social justice (internationalintranational, and inter generational) which Irguemust be a central plank of radical environmental_ism. Moreover, its stress on (individual) experienceas the key to involvement with nature is also SOme-what at odds with the integration of nature withlivelihood and work that Ialk of in this paper. ct .Kirkpatrick Sale, D w eller s in th e L and : The BioTegio1l il lVision (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1985).

18. John Kenneth Galbraith, "How Much Should aCountry Consume?" in Henry Jarrett, ed., Perspec-t iv es o n Co ns er va ti on (Baltimore: Johns HopkinsPress, 1958), pp. 91-92.

19. Devall and Sessions, D eep E c ol og y, p. 122.For Wen-dell Berry's own assessment of deep ecology, seehis "Amplications: Preserving Wildness," Wilder-ness 50 (Spring 1987): 39-40, SO-54.

20. S e e the interesting recent contribution by one ofthemost influential spokesmen of appropriate technol-ogy-Barry Commoner, "A Reporter at Large: TheEnvironment," N ew Y ork er , 15 June 1987. WhileCommoner makes a forceful plea for the conver-gence of the environmental movement (viewed byhim primarily as the opposition to air and water pol-lution and to the institutions that generate such pol-lution) and the peace movement, he significantlydoes not mention consumption patterns, implyingthat "limits to growth" do not exist.

21. In this sense, my critique of deep ecology, althoughthat of an outsider, may facilitate the r ea ss er tio n o fthose elements in the American environmental tradi-t ion for which there is a profound sympathy inother parts of the globe. A global perspective mayalso lead to a critical reassessment of figures such asAIda Leopold and John Muir, the two patron saintsofdeep ecology. As Donald Worster has pointedout, the message of Muir (and, Iwould argue, ofLeopold as well) makes sense only in an Ameri c ancontext; he has very litt le to say to other cultures.See Worster's review of Stephen Fox's J oh n M uir a ridH i s L e ga cy , in E nv ir on me nta l E th ic s 5 (1983): 277-81.

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