that
But
many
Aldo species
had a dream.
were extirpated
He dreamt from
of a time
Wisconsin.
when people
humbly accepted their role as citizens of the natural world
rather than its conquerors; a time when the land was not
viewed as a commodity to be exploited but as the source of
our continued existence. He longed for a time when people
appreciated and even respected wilderness, not just as a
hunting or recreational playground but as an awesome and
unimaginably complex machine that required all of its parts to
function well. These dreams didn’t come to Leopold overnight;
they came from a lifetime of thoughtful observation, reflection,
and informal experimentation. Aldo Leopold synthesized his
experiences into “A Sand County Almanac,” a classic work
that has sold over 2 million copies, yet for some reason, his
wisdom has barely penetrated our culture. Though persuasive
and moving, Leopold’s plea for a land ethic has thus far been
unable to change the near-universal belief that people are here
and nature is somewhere else.
And this is where philosophical musings about
conservation have run head-on into the brick wall of
the earth’s finite size and resources. The ecosphere, that
frighteningly thin zone at the earth’s surface to which life is
constrained, is not getting any bigger. There is no more land
today than there was 600,000 years ago when Homo erectus
first harnessed fire. In fact, the resources that support life on
earth are all under pressure from growing human populations
WINTER/SPRING 2019 • VOLUME 41
and consumption. Where is our expression of an ethical
relationship with the land and the life it supports when
we fragment forests to add another housing development,
pave more roads, seed a new sterile lawn, build another
shopping mall, or expand another airport? It is not part of
the discussion. After all, we need these things; our economy
must continue to grow forever, even though such growth is
antithetical to the laws of physics. Conservation is fine as long
as we do it in ways that do not constrain the human activities
we call progress—as long as we do it someplace else.
But giving up is not an option; our current model of
destroying the biosphere to expand the human footprint is
not now and never has been sustainable. And so, we need a
new conservation plan, one that sustains the living systems
we depend on everywhere: where humans dwell as well as
where they do not. We must abandon our age-old notion
that humans and nature cannot mix. Starting now we must
learn how to coexist. Aldo Leopold recognized that the
conservation model he had followed in the west, setting
aside large tracts of government land, would not work in
Wisconsin because most lands were privately owned. His
solution was to teach farmers and ranchers techniques to
restore and conserve the natural resources on their own lands.
With incredible foresight, Leopold suggested we “reward the
private landowner who conserves the public interest.”
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