“
There
~ by Jim Eagleman
Field Notes
are some that can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.”
These words printed in a book titled A Sand County Almanac, were written by scientist and biologist, Aldo Leopold. The book has occupied a prominent place in my library since I was first introduced to it as a student in the 1970s. Like Leopold, my professors knew the study of natural resources was more than just a discipline. Learning technical forestry and wildlife science was a human endeavor— how to work for the land and the people who inhabit it. We were to look for qualities any good manager should possess, not just those needed for wildlife and forest work. Good habits of a human resources manager, understanding how people act, how people live and work together, were also qualities for a natural resources manager. Psychology and sociology classes were requirements outside the school of natural resources. We learned how the human animal functions in its ecosystem.
Leopold graduated from Yale school of Forestry in 1909 and was first hired as an assistant forester for the U. S. Forest
Land Ethic
Service. It was in this capacity he witnessed how western lands were utilized and impacted by livestock allowed to graze on federal lands. By 1922, he submitted a formal proposal for the Gila National Forest as a wilderness area.
Leopold saw conservation working only when applied with a deep sense of awareness. As we depend on nature for all living, necessary things— food, water, wood, oxygen— we must monitor our lifestyles in order to live compatibly with the natural world.
He said,“ Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher standard of living is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. For us in the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque flower in bloom is a right as inalienable as free speech.”
During his time, geese overhead and a pasque flower( one of the first perennials to bloom in a Wisconsin spring), were still uncommon. Now, of course, we see geese everywhere in the Midwest, but the pasque flower may be one to add to our search list. Both occupy a place in the ecosystem. And though important in their own capacity, he mused,“ What merits to mankind might they possess?”
Leopold’ s acceptance, and maybe his appeal, meant being direct, to write what he observed, even of pending doom. He speaks with caution and an awareness of consequences. Resource exploitation and habitat destruction were already pressing issues.
52 Our Brown County March / April 2023