Both Mars trilogies, then, stage the conflict between ecologicalconservation and commercial development as a central feature of theirextraterrestrial societies. Bio- or eco-centrism of the kind articulatedby Waterman and Clayborne has been controversial in environmental-ist thought because its valuation of nonhuman nature in and of itselfhas often been accompanied by a more or less thinly veiled antagonismto the human presence, and to willful ignorance of the ways in whichmany supposedly “pristine” landscapes around the globe have in factbeen reshaped by indigenous societies for millennia. The untouchedsurroundings celebrated by deep ecology, so the movement’s critics haveargued, are far more exceptional in reality than ecocentrism alleges, andare often nothing more than a politically pernicious myth that choosesto forget the violent expulsions of indigenous people that often precededthe establishment of “wilderness” reserves. Since Mars does truly confronthumans with an environment that they have never yet have had a chanceto alter in any way, it seems to offer ecocentrism a firmer foothold thanTerran landscapes. In a sense, then, Bova’s and Robinson’s trilogies opena fictional window onto humankind’s last encounter with a truly “other,”not humanly altered, environment—nature in the authentic sense of BillMcKibben’s definition.
For me, a biocentric ethic should not be misanthropic or deluded about humans being a part of nature and influencing other living beings and the environment. What biocentrism should be doing is critiquing certain human behaviors that do not respect the balance of the webs of life.