Eco-Watch
1/11/95
Aldo Leopold was born on this day in 1887. As this century winds down, we are
beginning to believe that the winds of change are more like a millennial force,
much stronger than those needed to close-out a century. If our perception
proves sound, Leopold's wisdom may be pivotal in ushering in this new
millennium -- an era where we once again understand our interrelationship with
nature; where we begin to live a 'land ethic.' Enclosed find 3 pages of my
favorite Leopold. d.
Aldo Leopold's Legacy:
Leopold for Change Agents
Dave Iverson
Aldo Leopold was born January 11, 1887. His two best known works, A SAND
COUNTY ALMANAC and ROUND RIVER, were published after his untimely death in 1948
and later became keystones in emerging theories of environmental ethics and
ecosystem management. It is no accident that Leopold is given but scant notice
in Harold K. Steen's THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE: A HISTORY. The Forest Service
went through many eras during the first 100 years -- aligned with prevailing
moods in America -- but none of them were in tune with Leopoldian thought. As
we stand on the threshold of the 21st Century there is reason to hope that
Leopold's time is now at hand. If so, it might be well to spend a few moments
every now and then reflecting on his thoughts. Here are some of my
favorites. --- Dave Iverson.
Wisdom of Aldo Leopold:
"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When
we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with
love and respect." (p. xviii)
THE QUALITY OF LANDSCAPE
ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO: Thinking like a mountain
"I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves,
so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with
better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two
or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of
replacement in as many decades. So also with cows." (p. 140)
CHIHUAHUA AND SONORA
"We could not, or at least did not, eat what the quail and deer did, but we
shared their evident delight in this milk-and-honey wilderness. Their
festival mood became our mood; we all reveled in a common abundance and in
each other's well-being. I cannot recall feeling, in a settled country, a
like sensitivity to the mood of the land." (p. 155)
OREGON AND UTAH
"There is, as yet, no sense of pride in the husbandry of wild plants and
animals, no sense of shame in the proprietorship of a sick landscape. We
tilt windmills in belief of conservation in convention halls and editorial
offices, but on the back forty we disclaim even owning a lance." (p. 168)
A TASTE FOR COUNTRY
THE ROUND RIVER
"If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether
we understand it or not. If the biota in the course of aeons, has built
something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard
seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first
precaution of intelligent tinkering." (p. 190)
"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in
a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible
to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that
the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the
doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well
and does not want to be told otherwise." (p. 197)
NATURAL HISTORY
"The problem, then, is how to bring about a striving for harmony with land
among a people many of whom have forgotten that there is any such thing as
land, among whom education and culture have become almost synonymous with
landlessness." (p. 210)
THE UPSHOT
THE LAND ETHIC
"The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to
include soils, waters, plants, and animals; or collectively: the land. ...
In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of
the land-community to plain member and citizen of it." (P. 239-240).
"Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land" (p. 243)
"Obligations have no meaning without reference to conscience, and the
problem we face is the extension of social conscience from people to land."
(p. 246).
"No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal
change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and
convictions. The proof that conservation has not yet touched these
foundations of conduct lies in the fact that philosophy and religion have
not yet heard of it. In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have
made it trivial." (p. 246)
"Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through
a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. ... The circuit is not closed;
some energy is dissipated in decay, some is added by absorption from the
air, some is stored in soils, peats, and long-lived forests; but it is a
sustained circuit, like a slowly augmented revolving fund of life. ...
When a change occurs in one part of the circuit, many other parts must
adjust themselves to it. Change does not necessarily obstruct or divert
the flow of energy; evolution is a long series of self-induced changes, the
net result of which has been to elaborate the flow mechanism and to
lengthen the circuit. Evolutionary changes, though, are usually slow and
local. Man's invention of tools has enabled him to make changes of
unprecedented violence, rapidity, and scope." (p. 254-255)
"In all these cleavages, we see repeated the same basic paradoxes: man the
conqueror versus man the biotic citizen; science the sharpener of his sword
versus science the searchlight of his universe; land the slave and servant
versus land the collective organism." (p. 260-261)
"Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic
is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from,
rather than toward, an intense consciousness of the land." (p. 261)
"The case for a land ethic would appear hopeless but for the minority which
is in obvious revolt against these 'modern' trends."(p. 262)
"The 'key-log' which must be moved to release the evolutionary process for
an ethic is simply this: quit thinking of land as solely an economic
problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and
esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is
right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the
biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." (p. 262)
THE CONSERVATION ESTHETIC
"Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely
country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind."
(p. 295)
All quotes from A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC: WITH ESSAYS ON CONSERVATION FROM ROUND
RIVER, Ballantine Books, New York, 1978. Original edition: Oxford University
Press, 1966.
For those who would like to explore the influences of Leopoldian thought on our
cultural search for meaning, and on our search for theory to guide
environmental management in the next century, I recommend:
- TOWARD UNITY AMONG ENVIRONMENTALISTS, Bryan G. Norton, Oxford University Press,
1991.
- AN ENVIRONMENTAL PROPOSAL FOR ETHICS: THE PRINCIPLE OF INTEGRITY, Laura
Westra, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1994
- THE IDEA OF WILDERNESS, Max Oelschlaeger, Yale University Press, 1994.
And for the devoted, four books that I've not read but probably ought to:
- COMPANION TO SAND COUNTY ALMANAC: INTERPRETATIVE AND CRITICAL ESSAYS, edited by
J. Baird Callicott, University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
- THE RIVER OF THE MOTHER OF GOD: AND OTHER ESSAYS, edited by Susan L. Flader and
J. Baird Callicott, University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.
- ALDO LEOPOLD'S WILDERNESS: SELECTED EARLY WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR OF A SAND
COUNTY ALMANAC, edited and with interpretive comments by David Brown and Neil
Carmony.
- ALDO LEOPOLD: HIS LIFE AND WORK, Curt Meine, University of Wisconsin Press,
1988.
Index