Leopold, Aldo
Aldo Leopold (1887–1948), who was born in Burlington, Iowa, on January 11, was a pioneer of the American environmental movement. His essay "The Land Ethic," published in A Sand County Almanac (1966 [1949]), has become a foundational text of American environmental ethics. Leopold challenges his readers to reevaluate their relationship to the land they inhabit and act in accordance with a "land ethic" that "enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land" (Leopold 1966, p. 239). In his work the land and the biotic community become more than symbolic or abstract entities; they become beings with an intrinsic right to exist. Extending ethics and rights to the land, according to Leopold, necessarily "changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it" (Leopold 1966, p. 240). Leopold died in Baraboo, Wisconsin, on April 21.
Leopold's love of the land began when as a young naturalist he hunted and fished in his native Iowa. He took his interest in the natural world to Yale's School of Forestry in 1904. During his four years at the school founded by Gifford Pinchot (1865–1946), the first director of the U.S. Forest Service, Leopold absorbed the utilitarian philosophy of the early conservationists (Nash 1989). He served in the Forest Service from 1909 to 1928, working in Apache National Forest in Arizona and then managing the Carson National Forest in New Mexico. By 1928 his earlier studies in ecology and practice of game and forest management had taught him to see the world as a web of interrelated systems. He also came to understand the lasting consequences of individual action on the landscape. In "The Land Ethic" Leopold uses the term biotic pyramid to describe the dynamic relationships that exist among organisms and their environments. "Land," he argues, "is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals" (Leopold 1966, p. 253). In 1933 Leopold accepted an appointment in wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin.
The year 1935 was an important one for Leopold: His concern for vanishing American primitive areas led him to cofound the preservationist group the Wilderness Society. Leopold also purchased an abandoned, 120-acre farm in Sauk County, Wisconsin. It was in that setting that Leopold tried to articulate what it means to have an ethical relationship to the land. A Sand County Almanac, the record Leopold created of his years on the farm and his maturing environmental philosophy, was published in 1949, a year after he died fighting a fire on a neighbor's farm.
In his short piece "Axe in Hand" from Almanac Leopold provides an illuminating vignette on bias, showing how he imagines his relationship to the plants and animals that coinhabit his space and how he executes, sometimes literally, his decisions involving land management. The context for Leopold's dilemma is the felling of a tree; the decision he must make is between the white pine and the red birch, two species that crowd each other in those woods. Leopold examines the biases that influence a conservationist, which he defines as the axe wielder "who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of the land." He is specifically intent on examining the "logic, if any" behind his own biases (Leopold 1966, p. 73). Leopold understands that his biases are a filter through which he passes the details of the landscape, making his world and the objects in it comprehensible.
The examination of individual biases—in this case Leopold's inquiry into his preference for the pine over the birch—forms the first stage in the development of an ethical relationship to the land. What Leopold describes is land as a system with an integrity of its own. The boll weevil, for instance, will or will not attack the pine if certain relations with the birch exist or do not exist. Some plants will thrive and others will not, depending on whether the birch or the pine is there to give them shelter. When the axe wielder enters the scene, he has the potential to disrupt that system. His examination of bias enables Leopold to see all the possible consequences of his actions and act in a thoughtful manner.
In this essay Leopold paints a portrait of a community in which he is as much a part of the environment as are the trees, insects, and birds; he, like them, has a role to play. In "Axe in Hand" Leopold demonstrates what he calls in "The Land Ethic" the "ecological conscience"; that conscience, he writes, "reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land" (Leopold 1966, p. 258). Leopold summarized the principle behind the land ethic as follows: "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" (Leopold 1966, p. 262). Leopold's land ethic forces a reevaluation of the "value" of land broadly conceived and requires that limits be placed on the individual in favor of the health of the biotic community.
Aldo Leopold, 1886–1948. Leopold was an early environmentalist who laid the groundwork for many of the conservation laws and policies in place today. (AP/Wide World Photos.)Environmental Ethics;; Multiple Use;; Wildlife Management.
Bibliography
Callicott, J. Baird. (1989). In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press. See the essay, "Leopold's Land Aesthetic."
Leopold, Aldo. (1966 [1949]). A Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford University Press. Classic text of American environmental ethics; collection of essays detailing Leopold's experiences on his farm and his environmental philosophy.
Meine, Curt. (1991). Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Authoritative biography of Leopold.
Nash, Roderick Frazier. (1989). The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Traces the history of environmental ethics.
Scheese, Don. (1996). Nature Writing: The Pastoral Impulse in America. New York: Twayne.
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