Aldo Leopold

CP 6105- LAND CONSERVATION

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RESEARCH PAPER ON

-ALDO LEOPOLD-

PREPARED FOR: WILLIAM J. DRUMMOND

PREPARED BY: DEEPTI SILWAL

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

Background

Ethics is the concept that deals with the morality of actions as rights and wrongs. From the notion of Golden rule^[1] to numerous reflections on aims and laws of human conduct as Plato’s ‘virtue’ , Stoic’s ‘impassable barrier between one thing needful and other objects of choice’  Kant’s ‘acts of reason’, Nietzsche’s ‘individual’s relativism’, Hobbes’ social contract theory^[2] etc., ethics as a moral philosophy has ever existed as well as evolved over time( Wallace, 1886.pg. 576). However, this rule of conduct is largely a social guidance to individual’s actions and interactions amongst one another.

The extension of the moral sentiments towards the ecosystem/nature, termed as Environmental Ethics, can be realized only during environmental awareness in the 1960s with the rise of environmental problems as effect to industrialization and population growth. Albert Schweitzer’s philosophy of ‘’Reverence for Life’’ that claims “all living things have a will to live and that humans should not interfere with or extinguish this will” provided a moral standing for individual living organisms as a universal concept of ethics (Cochrane, A). Likewise, influential works as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring on the impacts of pesticides on public health and wildlife (1962), Paul Ehrich’s The Population Bomb’s (1968) picture of devastating effects of rising population on planet’s resources can be attributed to the rising consciousness on environmental ethics. Moreover, on a more holistic level, one of the most influential philosophy of environmental ethics was pioneered by a significant conservationist Aldo Leopold with his substantially influential piece on Land ethic in his book A Sand County Almanac.

This paper discusses the life of Aldo Leopold and his personal and professional environments and their role in his works and evolution of his ideas. It will discuss his major contributions as a land conservationist. The paper will mostly look upon his philosophy of Land ethics in his most prominent book A Sand County Almanac. Furthermore, the paper will touch upon interpretations, limitations and application of his theory of Land ethics.

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Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) was born and grown up in Burlington, Iowa, with his house overlooking the Mississippi River. The natural setting and his father, Carl Leopold’s teachings about grasses, shrubs, trees, birds, and mammals of the hills and wetlands surrounding the town kept Aldo and his three siblings well acquainted with nature (Encyclopedia, 2008). Carl also endorsed the responsibilities associated with hunting to his children. The outdoor lifestyle inculcated deep interests in Aldo towards wilderness literature, ornithology, etc. (Frese, J.S. 2003. Pg.101). Similarly, Aldo’s mother Clara Leopold played an influential role in immersing him into poetry, philosophy and German literature. Furthermore, Aldo was surrounded by the political environment where president Roosevelt created first federal wildlife refuge to protect birds from plume hunters and intervened to save nation’s forest, streams and wildlife in 1901 (Frese, J.S. 2003). Roosevelt appointed Gifford Pinchot, a utilitarian philosopher who studied forestry in Germany and France, to administer the nation’s forests as chief of the newly formed Forest Service in 1905.

Considering his predisposition towards nature, Aldo Leopold recognized Forestry as a legitimate career choice at Yale University, the only program in the country. He entered the Lawrenceville Preparatory School in New Jersey where he trained himself for a year to prepare for Yale. During this period, one of his literary peculiarity found in his writings enhanced with his personal letters to his mother sharing his experiences in the school. In 1909, he earned a Master of Forestry degree from Yale and joined the young U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to work in the territories of Arizona and New Mexico (Swanson, A.G. 1987). His on ground experience through reconnaissance surveys provided a more detailed picture of the existing forest conditions and led him to broaden his scope to include game conditions and resource management.

In 1912, Aldo’s personal experience with practical range management with his marriage to Estella Bergere whose family included prominent sheep ranchers; and his deathly experience of getting caught in a rainstorm in Carson National Forest deepened his interest in game conditions and resource management. Extending Pinchot’s resource management philosophy to include game, Leopold began a reconsideration of the relationship between public lands and hunting practice that would involve private landowners and government policy at every level. He recognized that the “best management practices for government forests did not necessarily provide adequate conservation of game habitat” (Encyclopedia, 2008). In 1928, he left USFS to undertake further studies that led to his landmark publication, A Report on a Game Survey of the North Central States. In 1933, he published the book Game Management, that established him a faculty position as the Chair of Game Management at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, first such appointment. The book spread as crucial part of wildlife courses and curricula at other universities. Leopold was an influence nationally as well. In 1920s, he along with Dr. Arthur Allen of Cornell helped the American Game Conferences, held in NYC, to expand scientific research on wildlife biology and management and in 1930, the conference adopted the American Game Policy (Swanson, A.G. 1987). The policy concentrated on establishing a profession of game management, researching on making the land produce more game, pursuing collaboration among non hunters, scientists, land owners, etc., funding from general taxes for conservation of all wildlife (University of Florida). Besides his teaching duties and research activities on wildlife ecology, Leopold managed the university arboretum as a site for pioneering work in ecological restoration and provided educational outreach activities to farmers and other landowners through the university's agricultural extension service (Lin, F.Q. 2014. pg. 105)