The offsite effects of forest management decisions can be missed with simplified approaches to forest conservation. When some lands are reserved from active management through wilderness designation or other ways, increased pressure on other lands occurs unless consumption is also reduced. In this article, MacCleery examines the relationship between consumerism and .

ALDO LEOPOLD’S LAND ETHIC: IS IT ONLY HALF A LOAF UNLESS A CONSUMPTION ETHIC ACCOMPANIES IT?1

OR

IS THE SHIFT TO “ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY” ON U.S. PUBLIC LANDS MERELY A SOPHISTICATED “NIMBYISM” MASQUERADING AS A “PARADIGM SHIFT”?

BY DOUGLAS W. MACCLEERY

ver the last two decades there has out on the land, rather than “what is While a mission shift on U.S. public Obeen a substantial shift in the man- removed.” Commodity outputs, if they lands is occurring in response to chang- agement emphasis of public, particular- are produced, would become a deriva- ing public preferences, that same public ly federal, lands in the U.S. That shift has tive or consequence of managing is making no corresponding shift in its been to a substantially increased empha- National forests for primarily a biodiver- commodity consumption habits. The sis on managing these lands for biodi- sity protection objective. Significantly, “dirty little secret” about the shift to eco- versity protection and amenity values, some Committee members bottomed logical sustainability on U.S. public lands with a corresponding reduction in com- this recommendation in part on “ethical is that, in the face of stable or increasing modity outputs. Over the last decade, and moral” grounds. per capita consumption in the U.S., the timber harvest on National Forest lands Many have attributed the move to effect has been to shift the burden and has dropped by  percent, oil and gas ecosystem management or ecological sus- impacts of that consumption to ecosys- leasing by about 40 percent, and livestock tainability to a belated recognition and tems somewhere else. For example, to grazing by at least  percent. adoption of ’s “land ethic”— private lands in the U.S. or to lands of Terms like “ecosystem management,” the idea that management of land has, or other countries. an “ecological approach to manage- should have, an ethical content. Last year, Between  and , federal timber ment,” and, more recently, “ecological celebrations were held commemorating harvest dropped  percent, from about sustainability” have been used to describe the th anniversary of the publishing of  to  billion board feet annually. (Note: this change in the management empha- Leopold’s , in this  billion board foot reduction is “log sis of public lands. Many have referred to which he spoke eloquently about the scale,” which translates into about a  it as a significant “paradigm shift.” Just need for an ethical obligation toward land billion board foot reduction in lumber recently, a Committee of Scientists issued use and management. One sign that that could have been processed from it— a report proposing that the National Leopold’s ideas have found an audience or about one-third of U.S. annual soft- Forests be managed for “ecological sus- with the larger society is that conserva- wood lumber production). A significant tainability,” where primary management tion issues are increasingly being taken effect of this reduction, in the face of emphasis is to be placed on “what is left” up as causes of American churches. continuing high levels of per capita wood

FOREST HISTORY TODAY | SPRING 2000 39 PHOTO BY STEVEN ANDERSON Reduction in harvests in one area transfers the effects, under constant consumption, to other ecosystems.

consumption, has been to transfer har- in the West. Today, the harvest of soft- mission shift on U.S. public lands. Any vest to private forest ecosystems in the wood timber in the southeastern U.S. ethical or moral foundation for ecologi- U.S. and to forest ecosystems in Canada. exceeds the rate of growth for the first cal sustainability is weak indeed unless For example: time in at least  years. Increased har- there is a corresponding focus on the con- vesting of fiber by chip mills in the sumption side of the Since , U.S. softwood lumber southeastern U.S. has become a public equation. Without such a connection, imports from Canada rose from  to issue regionally. ecological sustainability on public lands  billion board feet, increasing from  is subject to challenge as just a sophisti- to  percent of U.S. softwood lumber Today the U.S. public consumes more cated form of NIMBYism (“not in my consumption. Much of the increase in resources than at anytime in its history back yard”), rather than a true paradigm Canadian lumber imports has come and also consumes more per capita than shift. from the native old-growth boreal almost any other nation. Since the first A cynic might assert that one of the forests. In Quebec alone, the export of Earth Day in , the average family size reasons for the belated adoption of Aldo lumber to the U.S. has tripled since in the United States has dropped by  Leopold’s land ethic is that it has become . The increased harvesting of the percent, while the size of the average sin- relatively easy and painless for most of boreal forests in Quebec has become a gle family house being built has increased us to do so. When Leopold was a young public issue there. by  percent. man forming his ideas, more than  per- Harvesting on private lands in the The U.S. conservation community and cent of the U.S. population lived on southern United States also increased the media have given scant attention to farms. An additional  percent lived in after the reduction of federal timber the “ecological transfer effects” of the rural areas and were closely associated

40 FOREST HISTORY TODAY | SPRING 2000 with the management of land. Today producing timber and other natural his woods off a  percent slope, turns his less than two percent of us are farmers resources for urban consumers are com- cows into the clearing, and dumps its and most of us, even those living in rural monly referred to as natural resource rainfall, rocks, and soil into the commu- areas, are disconnected from any direct “dependent” communities. Seldom are nity creek, is still (if otherwise decent) a role in the management of land. the truly resource dependent communi- respected member of society.” Adopting a land ethic is easy for most of ties like Boulder, Denver, Detroit, or To take off on that theme and make us today because it imposes the primary Boston ever referred to as such. it more contemporary, the evidence that burden to act on someone else. One of the relatively little known no personal consumption ethic exists aspects of Aldo Leopold’s career is the today is that a “suburban dweller with a years he spent at the Forest Service’s small family who lives in a 4000 square- Forest Products Lab at Madison, foot home, owns three or four cars, com- …one of the reasons Wisconsin. While there, he spoke of the mutes to work alone in a gas guzzling need for responsible consumption. In sport utility vehicle (even though public for the belated  Leopold wrote: transportation is available), and other- wise leads a highly resource consump- adoption of The American public for many tive lifestyle is still (if otherwise decent) Aldo Leopold’s years has been abusing the waste- a respected member of society. Indeed, ful lumberman. A public which her/his social status in the community land ethic is that lives in wooden houses should be may even be enhanced by virtue of that careful about throwing stones at consumption.” it has become lumbermen, even wasteful ones, Ecosystem management or ecologi- until it has learned how its own cal sustainability on public lands will have relatively easy and arbitrary demands as to kinds and weak or non-existent ethical credentials qualities of lumber, help cause the and certainly will never be a truly holis- painless for most waste which it decries…. tic approach to resource management until the consumption side of the equa- of us to do so. The long and the short of the mat- tion becomes an integral part of the ter is that forest conservation solution, rather than an afterthought, as depends in part on intelligent con- it is today. Belated adoption of Leopold’s sumption, as well as intelligent land ethic was relatively easy. The true While few of us are resource pro- production of lumber. test as to whether a paradigm shift has ducers any more, we all remain resource really occurred in the U.S. will be consumers. This is one area we all can If management of land has an ethical whether society begins to see personal act upon that could have a positive effect content, why does not consumption have consumption choices as having an ethi- on resource use, demand and manage- a corresponding one, as well? Is there a cal and environmental content as well – ment. Yet few of us connect our resource and then acts upon them as such. consumption to what must be done to the land to make it possible. At the same time many of us espouse the land ethic, If management Douglas W. MacCleery is Assistant Director our operating motto in the marketplace of Forest Management for the U.S. Forest seems to be “shop ‘till you drop” or of land has Service in Washington, D.C. “whoever dies with the most toys wins.” The disjunct between people as con- an ethical content, FOOTNOTE sumers and the land is reflected in rising why does discord and alienation between produc- . Delivered at the conference “Building on ers and consumers. Loggers, ranchers, not consumption Leopold’s Legacy,” sponsored by the fishermen, miners, and other resource Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and producers have all at times felt them- Letters in Madison, Wisconsin, on October have a corresponding –, . selves subject to scorn and ridicule by the very society that benefits from the one, as well? products they produce. What is absent from much environmental discourse in the U.S. today is a recognition that urban- ized society is no less dependent upon need for a “personal consumption ethic” the products of forest and field than were to go along with Leopold’s land ethic? In the subsistence farmers of America’s his wonderful land ethic chapter in A past. This is clearly reflected in the lan- Sand County Almanac, Leopold suggested guage used in such discourse. Rural com- that evidence that no land ethic existed munities traditionally engaged in at the time was that a “farmer who clears

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