I thought of deep ecology as being the view (as expressed by Dave Foreman, IIRC) that humans aren't the only species who should get a seat at the table when deciding how to use the Earth. That you don't need to come up with an economic or health justification for ecology; you can just say it's right to set aside part of the world for other species, even if humans are worse-off for it.

I wasn't aware some people thought of an ecosystem as a moral agent. That sounds like deep ecology + Gaia theory.