Green Web Bulletin #64

My Path to Left Biocentrism:
Part II - Actual Issues

                                                                                                           by David Orton


Left Biocentrism in Practice
    When raising the deep ecology philosophy in concrete situations, one has to address human environmental concerns, because anthropocentric issues are often the point of entry for a particular struggle. In my experience, social justice, as in the effects of environmental degradation on human beings, in pesticides, the pulpmill impacts on natives living in the vicinity, or the imposition of the Sable gas pipeline on land owners and tenants, is often a major focus for organizing.

    I myself live in "pulpmill country", about 30 kilometers from one of the three major pulpmills in Nova Scotia. I can well emphasize with other people's concerns. When the wind is in the wrong direction, I can smell the hydrogen sulphide from this kraft mill. Most days I hear the noises of industrial forestry. All around here are massive clearcuts, a number of which have been sprayed with forestry biocides.

    These clearcuts have also meant extensive wildlife habitat destruction, blowdowns in adjacent woodlots, increased human recreational access, and a significant lowering of water levels in the river, the West River, which runs through the valley. Very large areas around here have absolutely no forest canopy remaining. This environmental vandalism, a direct consequence of the softwood, pulpmill forestry orientation in Nova Scotia, has intensified throughout the province. This is the on-ground reality, no matter the increasing use of "eco-rhetoric" by the companies and their government regulatory partners, e.g. proposed "model forests" or "integrated resource management" of crown lands; no matter the increasing awareness of deep ecology by some environmentalists; or the forestry critiques which have come from a number of people, including myself.

    While there have been occasional victories on biocide use, forestry or protected areas, overall the Earth destroyers are in control and setting the destructive agenda. How to change this destructive agenda is the task facing all of us.

    In practical applications, what is distinctive or not distinctive about left biocentrism, compared to deep ecology?
 

FORESTRY
    There is much that is compatible with the now quite extensive deep ecology writings on forests and industrial forestry. However, there are some important distinctions which are present in a left biocentric forestry policy. These distinctions are outlined below.

Actual struggles
    The left biocentric work is grounded in actual struggles. Analysis came about in response to mobilizing activists to fight pulpmill forestry and to fight biological and chemical herbicide spraying programs. (1)

    The most recent biocide example, is the development of a ten-point "Biological Controls: Negative Check List" (2), to help combat a planned B.t.k. (Bacillus thuringiensis variety kurstaki) forest spraying program against the tussock moth, for the summer of 1998. All biological controls (as well as chemical biocides), are being opposed in forest spraying. In Nature there are no "pests". But in forestry, so-called pests usually turn out to be competitors for the human/corporate use of the forests. Of course, introduced non-native species can cause massive ecological destruction, displacing native species and are a threat to biodiversity.

    The term "pulp mill forestry" links together pulpmills,  forest spraying, and forest practices such as clearcutting. The issues are interdependent and need to be fought together.

Ecoforestry?
    Ecoforestry can make some incremental gains in the existing situation, even though its full version can never be implemented with the continuation of industrial society. Left biocentrism does not support proposals by a number of deep ecology-influenced foresters and forest activists, who have held that there can be a full version "ecoforestry" or "wholistic" forestry, within industrial society. That is, that there can be a sustainable forestry within a non- sustainable society. This position is often tied to the view that a "certification" system for forest products, e.g. Forest Stewardship Council, will reward a "sustainable" forestry. (3) The thrust of a left biocentric critique, calls for the dismantling of industrial society, as part of a deep ecology forestry strategy. An ecoforestry advocated within a context of calling for the dismantling of industrial society, could be supported. What seems to be happening, is that the various schools of ecoforestry become held up as refuges from industrial society, and people turn their backs on the larger questions.
 

ABORIGINAL ISSUES
    There is a major differentiation between left biocentrism and mainstream deep ecology views on forestry, over aboriginal  issues. An explosive, complicated situation exists in Canada, because of sharply conflicting views on aboriginal claims to land and marine waters. For example, recent court rulings in New Brunswick and British Columbia have stated that aboriginal people have a "legal" right to forests and trees on crown land. Over 90% of forested land in Canada is considered crown land.

    Mainstream deep ecology has so far refused to develop any views on aboriginal claims, except to pronounce platitudes on similarities with traditional native thinking. An exception to this would be the helpful paper by Bron Taylor, "Earthen Spirituality or Cultural Genocide?: Radical Environmentalism's Appropriation of Native American Spirituality." (4) Articles in deep ecology forestry readers, referring to aboriginals, usually speak of relatively innocuous topics like the use of fire, the cultural use of plants and trees, the Seventh Generation concept, etc. Left biocentrism does not reject indigenous cultures in its basic orientation. It wants a critical discussion of such cultures, and has contributed to this.

    The indigenous peoples in Canada were dispossessed and forced off the lands they were occupying. This is historical reality. The key question is how do you respond to this situation today? Do you look at this from a human-centered or from an ecocentric perspective, and what does this mean practically? Is an aboriginal person significantly "different" today from any other Canadian living under the impact of industrial culture? What is the way forward for aboriginals and non-aboriginals? All humans and non-human life forms become impacted as land-use relationships change. To critically explore such questions is highly controversial, particularly as social justice considerations past and present permeate the whole discussion.

    Left biocentrists would support the following social justice statement from the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples:
    Aboriginal people are entitled to equal social, educational and health outcomes, to
    a fair share of the country's assets, and to a much greater share of opportunity than
    they have had so far. (5)

    However, while endorsing this position from the Royal Commission, left biocentrists will not support the elevation of aboriginal rights above those of non-aboriginals in Canada. While there is a lot of confusion, I would say the tendency today is towards some special/privileged access to exploiting nature for aboriginals. Most of those in Canada who are begrudgingly opening the door to aboriginals, are part of industrial capitalist culture, and they are tied to all its assumptions. For aboriginals, this may seem like the only open door to pass through.

    The 1982 Constitution Act recognizes the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of aboriginal peoples in Canada, where this includes the Indian, Inuit, and Metis peoples. When one studies the issues historically, government positions have changed in a bewildering manner. I have become convinced that the federal government (and most of the Canadian people), have no idea of the implications of the latest constitutional position.

    Within the aboriginal community, there are conflicts between "status", "non-status" and Metis, over access to hunting or treaty benefits. There is much controversy about how an aboriginal is defined, even within the native community.

    Aboriginal views significantly impact on a number of other important areas of ecological (and social) interest, in addition to forestry and forests. Green Web Bulletins have critically analysed aboriginal land use and treaty claims in Canada, bearing in mind colonial history and contemporary government positions, as they impact on forest policy, protected areas and the Wildlands Project, commercial trapping, fisheries and wildlife. (6)

    As an example, in a 1995 article "The Wild Path Forward: Left Biocentrism, First Nations, Park Issues and Forestry, A Canadian View" (7), I wrote that the dominant trend in First Nations forestry in Canada, was participation within the industrial forestry paradigm. I also argued for the position that deep ecology was a movement beyond indigenous attitudes to nature, which center around human use, however respectfully carried out. This traditional indigenous relationship to Nature can be characterized as "deep stewardship." This is undermined and ultimately destroyed by capitalist industrialism, which makes everything into a commodity for sale in the world's marketplace.

    When one looks back historically at indigenous peoples in North America or elsewhere, one sees a respectful animistic, spiritual relationship with wildlife and plant life. But there are also large faunal extinctions which many say have occurred, for example in New Zealand and the Americas. This is an unresolved dilemma, since it is hard to balance these two positions, which happened outside of the influence of eurocentrism and modern technology.

    The eight Green Web Bulletins produced during the period 1994-1996, with the common theme of rethinking environmental-First Nations relationships, have aroused much controversy and some hostility, both within the environmental community and also within the Canadian Left. (8) In October 1997 a  "wise use" think tank called "Mother Lode Research" also circulated to "wise use" groups, a denunciation of #50 ("Social Environmentalism and Native Relations"), as a contribution to the New World Order!

    If one smothers over basic conflicts, and doesn't sort them out, they eventually blow up in one's face. Such is the case in  the planned resumption of whaling by natives on the West Coast; or the recent press reports of some 460 wolves having been killed by a small number of native hunters on snowmobiles in the Northwest Territories. Native-environmental relations have to be addressed by environmentalists and greens, however unpopular, to delineate a radical ecological politics.

    I am involved locally, working with aboriginal people around the issue of pulpmill pollution, for example Boat Harbour. Yet I do believe that in a larger sense, the social justice component remains underdeveloped in this area of left biocentric work.

    A number of Bulletins on left biocentric environmental/indigenous issues, particularly as they relate to wildlife/native relationships, have helped build closer relationships between the Green Web and animal rights activists. (9)

    An article, "The Challenge of Industrial Capitalist Society: Is sustainable forestry possible?", outlined the values of a sustainable and non-sustainable society, and what this meant for forestry:
    The bones of a basic alternative philosophy for our forestry and other environmental
    work draw on traditional native and deep ecology thinking - the eight-point deep
    ecology platform with a strong social justice component which has its roots in the
    socialist tradition. This alternative philosophy expresses a new relationship to nature,
    which is biocentric or ecocentric, not  human-centered. (10)
 

RELATIONSHIP TO THE LEFT

        I believe that the ecological crisis will bring about the end of capitalism.
                                                                                                         Rudolf Bahro

    Below is an attempt to define a relationship to the Left for left biocentrism. The position taken is quite distinctive from that of mainstream deep ecology. It presents the positive and negative ideas from the Left. This assessment is based on my personal experience, plus writings in various Left journals and magazines that have some degree of openness to environmental and green thinking, and deep ecology. Since 1988 I have publicly opposed the view, in letters to the editor, that the social democratic NDP (New  Democratic Party) is an environmental party.

    The usual assumption on the Left is that there is a "convergence" between the Left and the Green. For example, one speaks of a Left-Green person or journal, or a Red-Green alliance. It is not my view, that there is a convergence between the Green and the Red. It is a position that I have reluctantly adopted.

Positive ideas
    1. A basic idea within the socialist and communist tradition is that society should control the economy and not the economy control the society, as is the situation under industrial capitalism. If the economy is controlling the society, is it not possible to have an economy which accepts operating within general ecological limits, as each corporation maximizes its own economic interests. It is easier to visualize an economy operating within ecological limits, if it is controlled by society. Social control of the economy does not have to be centralized, it could be decentralized in a bioregional economy.

    2. Sense of collective responsibility for all members of a society. It is not acceptable that a few live in luxury and others in poverty. This is the social justice contribution of the Left. It means income redistribution nationally and internationally. A radical ecological politics must take account of the interests of the human species for political success.

    3. Class awareness, being aware that not all are equal, although all may vote; that the press is "free" to those who own it in a capitalist democracy. Environmental, economic and social issues always have a class dimension, if one looks beneath the surface of industrial capitalist society.

    4. The Left has a concern for others and accepts the self-sacrifice of the individual interest for the collective well-being of the society. This is in opposition to the cult of individualism/selfishness under capitalism.

Negative ideas
    1. The Left has a human-centered world view, and cannot accept a biocentric/ecocentric outlook, that says animals and plants and the general ecosystem have to be treated on the same moral plane as humans. In any conflict situation, animals and plants and the physical Earth are defeated. Social justice is for humans, and is predominantly at the expense of the ecology.

    2. The Left says that capitalism, not industrialism, is the problem. Implicit in this view is that it is the ownership of wealth, which is fundamental. Left biocentrism sees industrial society as the main problem. It can have a capitalist or socialist face. This industrial view also accepts a class analysis.

    3. The labour theory of value from Marxism implies that Nature has no value or worth unless humans transform it through their labour. For deep ecology, Nature has value in itself.

    4. The assumption that humans can "own" Nature, and that collective ownership is best. Yet human "ownership" of Nature is irrelevant, whether individual, communal or state, if Nature is being destroyed. Of course, corporate or state ownership can result in more wide-scale destruction.

    5. Hostility to population reduction as a priority for an ecocentric world. This is because for the Left, humans are essentially the only species to have value. The habitat needs of other life forms are not important, particularly when this means impacting on the human species.

    6. The assumption from Marxism that "freedom" comes from the development of the productive forces, i.e. the industrial base, which will generate the needed wealth for communist society. Consumerism becomes part of this. Left Biocentrism opposes more economic growth and, following Rudolf Bahro, popularizes that industrialized nations need to reduce their impact upon the Earth to one tenth of what it presently is, for long term sustainability.

    7. The Left has a culture which is quite hostile to expressions of spirituality, religion being the "opium" of the people, etc. Left biocentrism holds that individual and collective spiritual/psychological transformation, not necessarily religious, is important to bring about major social change, and to break with industrial society. We need inward spiritual/psychological transformation, so that the interests of all species overrides the self-interest of the individual, the family, the community, and the nation.

    8. The Left promotes the "working class" as the instrument for social transformation to a more egalitarian society. Left biocentrism, like Bahro, sees the trade unions as united with their employers in defending industrial society and privilege. Environmental and green politics recruits across class, although there is a class component to such politics. It has been my  experience, for example in issues such as uranium exploration/mining and open pit coal mining, the killing of seals, pulpmill pollution, the spraying of biocides and destruction of forests, and the Sable gas project, that the unions involved or which stand to economically benefit, have had the same anti-ecological positions as their employers. This is the same in many other industries. Both unions and employers have an economic interest in the continuation of industrial society and speak with similar anti-ecological voices. In the main, trade unions are generally environmental enemies, not allies, of the environmental and green movements.

    9. The Left has no alternative economic model to that of the global, market economy. For example, the social democratic Left in Canada (the New Democratic Party) and in other countries, ends up adapting to the capitalist economic growth model, with its endless consumerism and the environmental destruction by trans-national corporations. A bioregional economic model not based on continuous growth, which will respect ecological limits and which serves social justice, could be an alternative model.

    10. The Left minimizes individual responsibility for destructive social or ecological actions. For example, the logger is "forced" to clearcut to feed his family, pay the mortgage, make the truck payments, etc. Although the primary locus of blame is the destructiveness of industrial capitalist society, this position is a denial of personal responsibility. Individuals must take responsibility for their actions and be socially accountable. Part of being individually responsible is to practice voluntary simplicity, so as to minimize one's own impact upon the Earth.

Summing up
    Consciousness or awareness has expanded from Marxist times. The open-mindedness to new ideas does not seem to be part of the Left any more. I have experienced a lot of hostility from left magazines and leftists in trying to advance a fusion of the green and the red, which entails giving up lot of the red. I no longer believe that the willingness for this needed openness is there. It's a hard to accept conclusion.

    The needed path must be from Red to Green. The positive ideas listed from the Left tradition, have to be part of a left biocentric synthesis.
 

SOME OTHER ISSUES
Green movement and party
    The green promise, which in the late 70s and early 80s seemed so hopeful, has been squandered in Canada as in other countries where "green parties" were declared into existence. By 1983, as part of that green promise, I declared myself a "green" and for a new green politics in Canada.

    Mainstream deep ecology does not seem to have had much of significance to say about the green movement or the formation of green political parties. To do so, of course, would mean to become concrete about achieving a deep ecology world and how to get there. Someone like the British academic Andrew Dobson, who, in his 1990 book Green Political Thought: An Introduction, has analysed the experiences of the British Green Party, would be an important exception. Dobson, who has been influential for a left biocentric synthesis, has a critical perspective, is grounded in the Left tradition, and is a supporter of deep ecology. (11)

    In no place, where green parties have been established, was (a) deep ecology accepted as the philosophical basis of unity; and (b) a political plan of implementation for deep ecology worked out along with steps for the transformation of industrial society. Instead of this, a series of 'green- sounding' principles were adopted by green parties, like the so-called "four pillars" of the German Green Party: ecology, social concern, grass-roots democracy and non-violence. Such principles could be endorsed by party members, because of their ambiguity, and then disagreed with, when actual issues came along which a green party had to take a stand on. If there is no agreement on philosophical fundamentals, then there will be no agreement on important practical issues. Along with the absence of a philosophical basis, green parties in Canada have produced detailed resolutions, when there is little social base for the party and an absence of social practice. The green parties conduct themselves as though they really are about to go into government!

    Essentially, green "party" politics everywhere concentrated on electoral success. This was interpreted to mean coming to an accommodation with industrial society - and its political institutions, like the parliamentary electoral system. Politically it meant the politics of green dilution, that is, promoting shallow ecology. In this process most "fundamentalists" like Rudolf Bahro in Germany, who saw the primary task of green party politics as spreading the consciousness that industrial society was finished, were forced out. Bahro, when he left 'Die Gruenen' said, "At last I have understood that a party is a counterproductive tool..." (12)

    I have remained a movement green, never having joined any federal or provincial green party in Canada. I wanted to be a believer in a green political party. I attended a federal green party convention, wrote in "party" journals which would publish me - and in movement journals on green topics; and organized the Nova Scotia leg of a five-week visit to North America by Swedish Green MP Per Gahrton. (13) But when one looked at the actual green party situation, whether federally or provincially, I had to remain a disbeliever. However, other supporters of left biocentrism have chosen to take out green party memberships and to raise the deep ecology flag internally. But there are many competing flags!

    I have taken part in green "party" debates in Canada since coming to a green consciousness. For a green party not to be a paper organization and to have substance, (14) a green party must:
    - Lead theoretically, which means party members sharing, understanding, and expressing in their work a common deep Green philosophy.
    - Be practically involved in issues and sum up this experience in policies/programs, around which the public can be rallied.
    - Develop new structures which are independent of the market and the state and the parliamentary road, which are radically democratic, give a sense of the embryo of a Green society, and which are accountable to the alternative movements.

    My first major intervention in the movement/party discussion in Canada, was to research how the federal green party came into being, compare this with the formation of green parties in other countries, and then to present publicly what I thought should be the characteristics of a green party which was subversive to the industrial order.
    It seems quite clear that in Canada, what can only be called 'green opportunists',
    created federal and provincial green parties before there was any kind of mass
    movement with a green alternative vision. We find the creation of such top-down
    parties to be contrary to what it means to be green, or what it means to build a
    green alternative within Canadian society. (15)

    The unanswered question for me is whether or not Bahro was right, about green parties being totally ineffective and the wrong focus for a deep green. It is clear, by looking at the history of say the British Labour Party, that the parliamentary system ultimately absorbs and tames the radical dissenter. Could a green movement, organized on a deep ecology basis and with its main work outside of parliament, control a green party and keep it on a de-industrial course? A political instrument is needed. But it is clear to me that existing green parties are not this instrument.
 

Protected areas and wildlife
    Protected areas have been a concern. For example, my own work and that of the Green Web have supported and popularized the Wildlands Project. This Project vision is region-specific, but generally conceives of large core protected reserves, surrounded by compatible land use buffer zones and with the core conservation zones linked together by natural corridors as part of a North American wilderness recovery strategy. One area of disagreement would be the willingness to accept private property rights in seeking to put in place the Wildlands Project.

    The Wildlands Project is perhaps the most successful application of deep ecology to a practical issue which involves significant numbers of people. The Project appears to have entered the consciousness of many in academia, through the discipline of conservation biology.

    We distributed the original Project document, published in a Special Issue of  Wild Earth, to contacts throughout Nova Scotia. Bulletin #36, which covered the 1992 Taiga Rescue Network conference on boreal forests, used the Wildlands Project as the model for a vision of wild boreal forests, within which local struggles need to be situated. More recently in May/June 1997, the Green Web, along with the Red Tail Nature Awareness Camp, co-sponsored and organized a weekend Wildlands Project workshop, in our bioregion. But in the Maritimes region of Canada, the Wildlands Project is at present mainly at the ideas stage.

    Within Nova Scotia, we have advocated making all the provincial crown land wildlife and plant life reserves (about 27% of the province), where no timber extraction for pulp or saw logs or biocide use, or hunting, trapping, or fishing, would be permitted. This was presented as being linked on the ground, with the two existing federal parks in the province, "for migration of wildlife and genetic exchange". (16)

    The Green Web participated in the public debate which took place in NS concerning a proposed systems plan for parks and protected areas, using, but going beyond the perspective of the Wildlands Project. (17)

    Wildlife is a major interest. There have been three focuses:
    - The first focus has been habitat protection. This would include opposing destructive forestry practices, biocide spraying, defending the need for parks, protected areas, etc.

    - The second focus has been to use available opportunities to point out the "game" orientation of wildlife policy in Nova Scotia and in Canada; contrast this with valuing wildlife for its own sake; and indicate how this game orientation was anachronistic with the values of most Canadians.

    - The third focus had to do with the defense of individual species of animals under threat, e.g. coyotes, seals, bears. We increasingly work with animal rights activists on this defense.

    Most people who support a left biocentric position do not hunt, although some of us are former hunters. Many rural-based Canadians are raised in a hunting culture. My experience is that as people's consciousness evolves in a more biocentric direction, they stop hunting and "sport" fishing. Being opposed to hunting or fishing is not seen as necessary to support a left biocentric position. I think it is important to not oppose subsistence hunting or trapping by native or non-native Canadians who live in rural Canada.
 

Sustainable Development
    Fighting 'sustainable development' has been a major focus of my work and that of the Green Web. Since 1989 I have intervened in the public debate around the 1987 UN book Our Common Future, by the World Commission on Environment and Development (also known as the Brundtland Report, after its chairperson). The Brundtland Report gave a great promotion to the concept of sustainable development. Industrial capitalism and its supporters used the Brundtland Report to defeat the basic ecological position that, in a finite world, there have to be "limits to growth". (18)  With sustainable development, growth could continue.

    To fight sustainable development, and undermine its support, a document, "Sustainable Development: Expanded Environmental Destruction" was produced in February 1990. (19) This publication analysed Our Common Future. It showed that sustainable development promoted more economic growth, had a human-entered orientation, accepted increasing population growth, did not make ecology primary, did not call for the transfer of productive wealth, and advocated the greater use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. For the Brundtland Report, wildlife species should live or die depending on their usefulness for humans.
 

CONCLUSION
    As can be seen from this extensive essay, there is indeed a left focus or theoretical tendency within the broader deep ecology movement, which is in the process of defining itself. Quite a number of people are engaged in this work, although this examination has concentrated upon my own work and that of the Green Web.

    Rudolf Bahro said in Avoiding Social & Ecological Disaster, (20) that the industrialized countries need to reduce their impact upon the Earth to about one tenth of what it is. The debate over what to retain from the old industrial order, is an important and needed debate for left biocentrism. The new social order, which will respect the rights of all species and their specific habitats, will be based on spirituality and morality, not the economy. This new social order will stand against the control and manipulation of nature and human society by technology and computerisation.

    In writing this essay, it has become clear to me that to protect all life, and to replace anthropocentrism with ecocentrism within human society, can only be done by mobilizing the species that is destroying life. Paying attention to social justice and questions of class, corporate power, and entrenched self-interest, is a necessary part of that human mobilization, and the movement to a deep ecology world.

    This paper has shown that there are some deep ecology and social justice criticisms of mainstream deep ecology. At a deeper level, left biocentrism is saying that to have any political implementation or relevance, deep ecology must come to terms with the work of left biocentrism and similar endeavours. The eight-point deep ecology Platform is not enough.

    There is a common saying within the deep ecology movement, that originated from Arne Naess, that "the front is long". This is generally interpreted to mean that people do different things, there is lots of work to do, and by implication one should not criticize the work of others. This essay has raised a number of criticisms of deep ecology and of Naess. In a friendly letter to me (20), Naess said "We probably have some real disagreements, but let us get rid of 'pseudo-disagreements'." I hope I have accomplished this.

    While there are some significant discontinuities with deep ecology, the work those of us with a left biocentric tendency do, is meant to strengthen not undermine the deep ecology movement. It is important to acknowledge, discuss, and try to resolve real contradictions. What others do in the name of deep ecology, even if the front is long, affects all who work for a deep ecology world.
 

 April 1998


 (Printed in Feral: A Journal Towards Wildness, No. 2, Spring 2000.)



Footnotes

1. See for examples of the forestry analysis, Green Web Bulletins #10, "Pulpwood Forestry in Nova Scotia" (1983); #26, "Pulp and Paper Primer: Nova Scotia" (1991); and the most recent critique of industrial forestry, Bulletin #53, "Fig Leaves And Wood Supply: A Critique Of 'A New Forest Strategy For Nova Scotia'" (1996).

2. December 7, 1997.

3. Green Web Bulletin #40 (1993).

4. Religion,  27 (1997), pp. 183-215.

5. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Vol. 5: "Renewal: A Twenty-Year Commitment," (Ottawa: Canada Communication Group, 1996), p.55.

6. There are eight Green Web Bulletins on aboriginal issues: #43-48, 50 and 51.

7. Green Web Bulletin #44, Wild Earth, 5:3 (1995), pp.78-83.

8. See particularly Green Web Bulletin #50, "Social Environmentalism and Native Relations", much of which was printed as "Deep Left Dilemmas" in Canadian Dimension, 30:4 (1996), and the subsequent discussion of this article.

9. See for example, D. Orton, "Aboriginal Tradition or Commercial Trapping? Fur Industry Masquerades As Politically Progressive", Earth First! Journal, 15:7 (1995), p. 24.

10. Canadian Dimension, 28:3 (1994), pp. 31-2.

11. D. Orton, "Book Review of A. Dobson Green Political Thought", Canadian Dimension, 28:3 (1994), pp. 46-7.

12. R. Bahro, "Statement on My Resignation From The Greens," June 19, 1985, in his book Building The Green Movement, (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1986), pp. 210-11.

13. P. Gahrton, "Greens in North America," Green Web Bulletin #21, (1990).

14. D. Orton, "Book Review of A. Dobson Green Political Thought", Canadian Dimension, 28:3 (1994), pp. 46-7.

15. This analysis was given in Green Web Bulletin #4, "Green Marginality In Canada", which was a presentation by Helga Hoffmann and myself to the 1989 Learned Societies Conference at Laval University in Quebec City.

16. D. Orton, "An Alternative Vision for Wildlife in Nova Scotia." Presentation to a "Wildlife Strategy" conference, Truro, NS, on January 25, 1992.

17. Green Web Bulletin #47, "Aim High: The Wild Path Forward, Notes for Wilderness Recovery and A Protected Areas Policy in Nova Scotia." Presentation given at a public meeting in Truro, on February 21, 1995.

18. D. H. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth: A Report to The Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind,  (New York: Signet Books, 1972).

19. Green Web Bulletin #16 (1990).

20. R. Bahro, Avoiding Social & Ecological Disaster,  (Bath, UK: Gateway Books, 1987), pp. 324-26.

21. Letter of December 2, 1996.


    Other parts of the "My Path" bulletins:
        My Path to Left Biocentrism: Part I - The Theory (Green Web Bulletin # 63)
        My Path to Left Biocentrism: Part III - Handling Contradictions (Green Web Bulletin # 70)
        My Path to Left Biocentrism: Part IV - Aboriginal Issues and Left Biocentrism (Green Web Bulletin # 71)
        My Path to Left Biocentrism: Part V - Deep Ecology and Anarchism (Green Web Bulletin # 72)
        My Path to Left Biocentrism: Part VI - The Impact of September 11th: Fundamentalism and Earth
        Spirituality(Green Web Bulletin # 73)


To obtain any of the Green Web publications,  write to us at:

Green Web, R.R. #3, Saltsprings, Nova Scotia, Canada, BOK 1PO
E-mail us at: greenweb@ca.inter.net


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