ABSTRACT
Fundamental to Green thinking are the linked concepts of deep ecology and animal liberation. Proponents of such ideas argue that other species and indeed ‘All life has intrinsic value’ (Bunyard and Morgan-Grenville 1987:281). Many believe that Greens can be separated from mere environmentalists by virtue of their adherence to such ‘bioethics’ (Dobson 1990:48). Where others wish to conserve the whale, so as to maintain the delicate balance of an ocean eco-system for the benefit of the human race, the deep ecologist/ animal liberationist highlights the innate and absolute right of the whale to life. With the publication of Singer’s Animal Liberation in 1976, a militant and growing animal rights movement, opposed to the extinction of whales and other species, and active against hunting and vivisection, gained a significant boost. Their tactics of direct action, including the destruction of property, have since been borrowed by the militant Earth First! movement of the 1980s and ‘90s. Earth First!, starting in the United States and spreading to Australia, Canada and the UK, has stressed an attitude that places the Earth and its species first and opposes all human-centred assaults on nature.
