Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique" by Ramachandra Guha
Guha identifies four tenets of deep ecology and offers a critique of each.
tenets of deep ecology:
1. environmental movement needs to shift from anthropocrntric to biocentric perspective - "Preserving nature, the deep ecologists say, has an intrinsic worth quite apart from any benefits preservation may convey to future human generations" (73).
2. need for wilderness preservation/restoration
3. Eastern spiritual traditions are more "biocentric" and are seen as forerunners of deep ecology (73)
4. shared belief that they are the vanguard of American and world environmentalism (74)
Guha's critiques:
(1)"The two fundamental ecological problems facing the globe are (i) overconsumption by the industrialized world and by urban elites in the Third World and (ii) growing militarization" (74). SInce neither of these problems has a tangible connection to the anthropocentric-biocentric distinction, "invoking the body of anthropocentrism is t best irrelevant and at worst a dangerous obfuscation" (74).
(2) The emphasis on wilderness is harmful when applied to the Third World, where the interests of elites and international environmentalist organizations combine to create conservation projects that can threaten the survival of local populations. Focus on wilderness preservation distracts from environmental problems (fuel, food and water shortages, erosion and pollution) that directly affect the lives of poor people (75).
(3) The invocation of Eastern philosophies as an antecedent of deep ecology works to construct "an authentic lineage" and to "present deep ecology as a universalistic philosophy." However, "this reading of Eastern traditions is selective and does not bother to differentiate between alternate (and changing) religious and cultural traditions; as it stands, it does considerable violence to the historical record" (77). Guha describes Ronald Inden's argument "that this romantic and essentially positive view of the East is a mirror image of the scientific and essentially pejorative view normally upheld by Western scholars to the Orient . . . . Eastern man exhibits a spiritual dependence with respect to nature - on the one hand, this is symptomatic of his prescientific and backward self, on the other, of his ecological wisdom and deep ecological consciousness. Both views are monolithic, simplistic, and have the characteristic effect - intended in one case, perhaps unintended in the other - of denying agency and reason to the East and making it the privileged orbit of Western thinkers" (77).
(4) Guha argues that deep ecology is not as radical as its proponents think, and situates it as a radical trend within a wilderness preservation movement that is an integral part of modern American consumer society. For Guha the equation of environmental protection with wilderness preservation is both a mistake and a specifically American impulse (79).
Guha offers the German Greens and the INdian Chipko (Hug the Tree) movements as distinguished from Western environmental movements in two important ways:
(1) for those sections of society most affected, environmental degradation threatens their survival. so that the environmental movement is about more than just enhancing the quality of life (81)
(2) "as a consequence, the environmental solutions they articulate deeply involve questions of equity as well as economic and political redistribution" (81).