The Deep Ecology Platform

During a 1984 camping trip in Death Valley, Arne Næss and the American philosopher George Sessions drafted eight principles that became the operational core of the deep ecology movement. The platform affirmed the intrinsic value of non-human life, the necessity of biodiversity, the excessiveness of current human interference with natural systems, and — crucially — the need for fundamental changes in economic, technological, and ideological structures. The fourth principle called for substantial decreases in human population to allow non-human life to flourish. The seventh insisted that ideological change must consist of appreciating life quality rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. The platform was designed to be broad enough to accommodate diverse philosophical and spiritual orientations while specific enough to guide practice.