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Evolution of Land Ethics

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Evolution of Land Ethics January 2007 1 The onceonce andand ffutureuture LAND ETHIC The author of the defi nitive biography of Aldo Leopold and a longtime student of the relationship between men and land considers how conservation should adapt to succeed in the next century ESSAY BY CURT MEINE ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES W. SCHWARTZ ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CHARLES W. SCHWARTZ: WILDLIFE DRAWINGS, PUBLISHED BY THE CONSERVATION COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI 2 Wyoming Wildlife Leopold opened wide the discus- sion. The land ethic might have gone down in history as the idiosyncratic expression of a mid-twentieth cen- tury naturalist, scientist, and writer. Instead, with his self-abnegating assertion, Leopold liberated the land ethic. He gave his readers a stake in the idea, and a responsibility to develop it. He invited other voices to join the conversation, thus ensuring that it would remain vigorous. Each of us as individuals, as members of different communities, and as par- ticipants in a broader culture, may help to “write” the land ethic. What forces will shape the land ethic in the future? How must the concept of a land ethic evolve in order to thrive and provide guidance to conservation in the twenty-fi rst once and future century? There are, of course, innu- merable answers to these questions. “I have purposely presented the land ethic as a It is possible, however, to identify at product of social evolution because nothing is so least some overarching challenges important as an ethic is ever ʻwritten.ʼ” a land ethic will need to meet to LAND ETHIC remain vital. Aldo Leopold (1949) The land ethic will need to embrace, and be embraced his sentence, appearing near the end of “The by, new constituencies. Land Ethic,” is arguably the most important How can the land ethic be nur- tured within diverse and constantly TAldo Leopold ever wrote. With these words, changing human communities, with he acknowledged the limits of his own efforts to different traditions and relationships to land? Aldo Leopold. Land ethic frame a large and complex idea. He understood that refl ected the social realities of his such an ethic could form and evolve only “in the time and place. Looking head, it is not diffi cult to predict that, as our so- minds of a thinking community.” The author of the cieties, economies, and demograph- essay “The Land Ethic” did not, and and insights from the natural sci- ics change, so will our environmen- could not, “write” the land ethic. ences, history, literature, ethics, eco- tal concerns. This will redefi ne what No one person could. And everyone nomics, aesthetics, and public policy. conservation is and how we pursue could. It was the culminating expression of it. It will call for a blending of varied Which is not to say that Leopold Leopoldʼs intellectual, professional, cultural traditions and values, with did not pour himself into “The Land and spiritual growth. priorities that do not always mesh, Ethic.” His essay distilled a life- Yet Leopold recognized the and that may well be in confl ict. time of observing, reading, writing, contingent nature of the land ethic— Fortunately, such openness and thinking, experimenting, blundering, perhaps because the idea evolved inclusiveness are in greater evidence and always asking the next question continually in his own thinking, now than perhaps at any time since about the very meaning of conserva- in varied landscapes. In any case, Leopoldʼs day. Conservation crosses tion. In it, Leopold sought nothing by explicitly framing his idea as cultural divides in a way it did not in less than to redirect the conservation the “tentative” expression of one Leopoldʼs generation, with increas- movement by blending knowledge member of a thinking community, ing appreciation of the complicated January 2007 3 connections between healthy land- join, new worlds are made possible: scapes, communities, and identity. “Perhaps then we might fully imag- Community-based approaches to ine and comprehend who and what conservation require that people be we are with respect to each other invested with responsibilities for and with respect to this land. What is decisions that affect the quality and defined by some as an edge of sepa- sustainability of their home land- ration between nature and culture, scapes. Educational programs and people and place, is where common new technologies provide access ground is possible.” to information in ways that did not exist even few years ago. Faith com- munities throughout the world have The land ethic will need to looked to their traditions for affirma- respond to emerging sci- tion of environmental values. The entific insights and shifting environmental justice movement has scientific foundations. opened opportunities for honest con- How will the land ethic adapt versations on shared concerns— in to the insights that flow from the much the same manner that Leopold natural sciences? Leopoldʼs land tried to do in “The Land Ethic.” ethic rested upon a solid foundation As these trends continue, the ef- of interdisciplinary science, but that fort must involve more than merely foundation is itself subject to con- communicating the land ethic to new tinuous intellectual evolution. Over constituencies. Rather, it will require the last half of the twentieth century, expanding the “thinking commu- revolutions occurred in every field nity” and encouraging people to of natural science, including geology understand themselves and their sto- (especially plate tectonic theory), ries through their relationship with climatology, oceanography, marine the land. To neglect such diverse biology, hydrology, limnology, pale- voices is to leave, in Lauret Savoyʼs ontology, biogeography, systematics, words, a “strength . only partially genetics, wildlife biology, forestry, realized.” By contrast, when voices and the agricultural sciences. These revolutions have rumbled on beneath the surface of the land ethic. If it is to stand, the land ethic must be supple and flexible. In particular, the land ethic will need to reflect advances in the fields of evolutionary biology, biogeogra- phy, environmental history, and ecol- ogy. Over the last several decades, evolutionary biology and paleontol- ogy have recast our understanding of ancient, “deep time” extinctions. We have a much clearer picture of the impact of he human diaspora out of Africa on the worldʼs landscapes and biotas over the last hundred thou- sand years, including the period of Pleistocene extinctions that “set the stage” for todayʼs living world. Is- land biogeography and environmen- tal history have revealed the broad patterns of change that have shaped biotas, landscapes, ecosystems, and cultures over more recent centuries 4 Wyoming Wildlife and decades. In ecology, emphasis conservation— more universal than we wonʼt save wilderness”; bringing has shifted away from the classic profit, less awkward than govern- urban and suburban dwellers into “balance of nature” idea to a better- ment, less ephemeral than sport; conversations about conservation; informed “flux of nature” paradigm something that reaches into all taking seriously the connections that accounts for the dynamic nature times and places, where men live between land, fresh water, and the of ecosystems. on the land, something that brackets marine environment. The land ethic In response to these changes, and everything from rivers to raindrops, cannot meaningfully endure if the others yet to come, conservationists from whales to hummingbirds, from fragmentation of interests prevails. It will need to incorporate the lessons land estates to window-boxes. I can will flourish if it makes connections. of environmental history and sort see only one such force: a respect for out the biological impact of human land as an organism; a voluntary de- activities at various scales of time cency in land-use exercised by every The land ethic will need to and space. This has already been citizen and every land-owner out of be extended to the aquatic happening in conservation biol- a sense of a love for and obligation and marine realms. ogy, restoration ecology, and other to that great biota we call America. How can the land ethic fully fields. But the land ethic is not just This is the meaning of conservation, embrace water resources and aquatic for scientists. Conservation-minded and this is the task of conservation ecosystems, and encourage an citizens must also become familiar education.” “ocean ethic”? We are terrestrial with these scientific advances to Leopold was not alone in such creatures with terrestrial biases. Only critically understand such issues, for expressions. In “The Land Ethic,” he with time have even conservation- example, as species invasions, fire was indeed speaking on behalf of a ists come to appreciate the essential management, aquifer depletion, and community of conservation scien- connections between groundwater, emerging diseases. tists, thinkers, and advocates who surface waters, and atmospheric found common cause, and assumed a waters, and between water as a vital common responsibility. ecosystem component and a basic The land ethic will need There was no past golden age human need. to extend across, and recog- when conservation united people Leopold explicitly included nize connections within, the across social, economic, and po- water in his definition of “land” entire landscape. litical divides. However, there have and devoted significant and profes- How can the land ethic help to been periods when the conservation sional energies to understanding revive and strengthen bonds of com- consensus was unusually strong: the human impacts on watersheds and mon interest within the landscape early years of the progressive move- aquatic systems. Aldoʼs sun Luna, a and within conservation? Leopoldʼs ment, the “dirty thirties,” the Earth renowned hydrologist and conserva- work focused on the health of wild, Day awakening of the early 1970s. tionist in his own right, defined the semiwild, and rural lands. His ethic Unfortunately, such consensus seems essential point: “Water is the most spanned a broad range of conserva- to emerge only in response to envi- critical resource issue of our life- tion interests.
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