Richard Sylvan, (13 December 1935 - 16 June 1996) was a philosopher, logician, environmentalist, and anarchist. He was a proponent of "deep ecology", though he was critical of most attempts to articulate this ethic and preferred to characterise his own version as deep green theory. Sylvan was born as Francis Richard Routley at Levin, New Zealand, in 1935. He changed his name to Sylvan ("of the forest") to reflect his commitment to nature when he remarried (Louise Sylvan, nee Merlin) in 1983. He was formerly married to Val Routley (subsequently Val Plumwood). Sylvan studied at Victoria University, Wellington, and then Princeton, before taking positions successively at the University of Sydney, the University of New England and Monash University. From 1971 until his death in 1996 in Bali, In