A Wisconsin Shack
In 1935, Aldo Leopold bought a "worn out shack" in northern Wisconsin. For the rest of his life, Leopold spent his weekends their writing and caring for the local ecosystem. He planted hundreds of trees and plants and enriched the soil. Much of these activities he wrote about which came to be his famous novel "A Sand County Almanac."
A Sand County Almanac
Leopold was already a popular writer in scientific journals but he wanted to expand his conservation agenda to all of America. The Oxford Press agreed to print the collection of essays he wrote entitled "Great Possessions." Tragically, a week before the publication, Leopold died of a heart attack. His children, a year later published the unfinished book, this time called "A Sand County Almanac." He could have never predicted the results. Today over 2 million copies have been sold and it has been translated into 12 different languages.
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The Land Ethic
The final chapter of A Sand County Almanac called the "Land Ethic" is the most relevant and influential of his book. It redefined how we as humans should view the earth. He declared that there are certain ethics that we must abide to to keep a strong and healthy relationship with the environment.
"The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land..." Included in the "land" are humans. Leopold believed we needed to expand our definition of community to include the humans that belong to it. We should no longer act as the "conqueror" of the land, we should as a part of it. Leopold's quote below best demonstrates the new "Land Ethic."
“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for). |
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