ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a review of some of the insights and their potential inspiration for degrowth movements and traces a line of connection with a radical and anarchist side of environmentalist and more transformative geographic thought. It provides many writings and works of Élisée Reclus address essential issues which are today at the core of degrowth theory. Though the global environmental system has significantly changed in the last century, Reclus' reflections on the human impact on the environment seem still relevant today. Ecology provides degrowth with determinant foundations that drive to surpass the reductionist understanding of nature according to neoliberal economics. In physical terms, and transcending any ideological or political connotation, degrowth seems to be the unique path to reduce pressure of capitalist and consumerist lifestyles over the global ecological boundaries. Degrowth challenges centralised, hierarchised and representative democracy and needs to be thought in 'a broad and articulated process of shared learning, self-education, reconstruction of social ties and collective transformation'.
