Introduction

In 1998, I suggested in an essay entitled ‘The Recovery of Wisdom: Gaia Theory and Environmental Policy’ that the change in vision brought about through an engagement with James Lovelock’s Gaia theory marked a phase change in human understanding of the environment: an understanding essential for the formulation of good environmental policies. The theory clarified why such policies had to be formulated and implemented within a context of the well-being of a larger whole, one that ultimately encompasses the global environment. Gaia theory does this, I argued, by providing us with a comprehensive view of diverse life support systems within the context of earth as a single system (Primavesi 1998: 75).