John Seed, founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia, is tonight’s special guest speaker. Since 1979 he has been involved in the direct actions which have resulted in the protection of the Australian rainforests and is a leading thinker and workshop facilitator on Deep Ecology.

In 1984 he helped initiate the US Rainforest Action Network which grew out of the first of his many US roadshows. In 1987 he co-produced a television documentary, "EARTH FIRST!" for Australian national television about the struggle for the rainforests. This has since been shown in many countries. A front-page story about John's work in the Christian Science Monitor at this time referred to him as "the town crier for the global village".

He has created numerous projects protecting rainforests in Sth America, Asia and the Pacific by providing benign and sustainable development projects for their indigenous inhabitants tied to the protection of their forests.

John has written and lectured extensively on deep ecology and has been conducting Councils of All Beings and other re-Earthing workshops around the world for over 25 years. With Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Professor Arne Naess, he wrote "Thinking Like a Mountain - Towards a Council of All Beings" (New Society Publishers) which has now been translated into 12 languages.

Deep ecology is a key to the change we need - not only looking at one issue or one forest at a time. To deep ecology, underlying all the symptoms of the environmental crisis lies a psychological or spiritual root – the illusion of separation from the rest of the natural world which stems from anthropocentrism or human-centeredness.

Conditioned to “subdue and dominate” nature, the modern psyche is radically alienated from the air, water and soil which underpin life and this is reflected in the rapid shredding of all natural systems in the name of economic development. Deep ecology reminds us that the world is not a pyramid with humans on top, but a web in which we are but one strand and if we destroy this web, we destroy the foundations for all complex life including our own.

Many people INTELLECTUALLY realise that we are inseparable from Nature and that the sense of separation that we feel is socially conditioned and illusory.

John is also a songwriter and filmmaker and has produced 5 albums of environmental songs and numerous films.