David Orton

Who was David Orton?

David Keith Orton was a Canadian writer, thinker and environmental activist who played a leading role in developing "left biocentrism" within the philosophy of deep ecology. Orton and his collaborators added the word "left" to biocentrism to indicate their anti-industrial, anti-capitalist orientation and their concern for social justice. Their 10-point Left Biocentrism Primer, published in 1998, accepts the idea that the natural world belongs to all living things, but it also calls for the ethical principles of deep ecology to be applied to sensitive political issues such as working for a reduction in the human population, achieving justice for aboriginal peoples, struggling for workers' rights and redistributing wealth. Orton, however, frequently asserted that the rights of nature had to come first. "Social justice is only possible in a context of ecological justice," he wrote. "We have to move from a shallow, human-centered ecology to a deeper all-species centered ecology." Elsewhere he added: "There is no justice for people on a dead planet."