Stephan teaches Gaia theory and deep ecology at Schumacher College in southwest England. He is the author of "Animate Earth", a book in which he explores how Gaian science can help us to develop a sense of connectedness with the 'more-than-human' world. His work is based on a careful integration of rational scientific analysis with our intuition, sensing and feeling-a vital task at this time of severe ecological crisis.

He was born in Venezuela in 1953 and moved to London with his father at the age of six. He has always had a powerful connection with the natural world and his scientific cast of mind led him into biology and ecology. Aged 18, he spent seven months working in the remote Sengwa Wildlife Research Area in Zimbabwe, helping with research on the ecology of elephant and warthog.

After graduating in zoology from Durham University, he went back to Venezuela to work with the Smithsonian Institution researching the ecology of small mammals in the plains and forests around Caracas. Whilst there, he learned to play the cuatro, a small four-stringed guitar much loved by the "llaneros" - the people of the plains of Colombia and Venezuela.

Then he joined the Animal Ecology Research Group at Oxford university, working six years for his doctorate on the ecology of feral muntjac deer in Britain. Then followed a two-year spell in Costa Rica teaching wildlife biology at the National University and doing research in the rainforest.

Back in England he heard about the nascent Schumacher College through a Tibetan Buddhist and was appointed Ecologist in Residence. He has been based at Schumacher ever since, teaching alongside some of the leading thinkers and writers in the green movement, including Fritjof Capra, Vandana Shiva, Brian Goodwin, Arne Naess and James Lovelock, with whom he collaborated scientifically for many years.