Overview
A Sand County Almanac is a combination of natural history, scene painting with words, and philosophy. It is perhaps best known for the following quote, which defines his land ethic: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." The original publication format was issued by Oxford University Press in 1949. It incorporated a number of previously published essays that Leopold had been contributing to popular hunting and conservation magazines, along with a set of longer, more philosophical essays. The final format was assembled by Luna Leopold shortly after his father's death, but based closely on notes that presumably reflected Aldo Leopold's intentions. Subsequent editions have changed both the format and the content of the essays included in the original.
In the original publishing, the book begins with a set of essays under the heading "Sand County Almanac," which is divided into twelve segments, one for each month. These essays mostly follow the changes in the ecology on Leopold's farm near Baraboo, Wisconsin. (There is, in fact, no "Sand County" in Wisconsin. The term "sand counties" refers to a section of the state marked by sandy soils). There are anecdotes and observations about flora and fauna reactions to the seasons as well as mentions of conservation topics.
The second section of the book, "Sketches Here and There," shifts the rhetorical focus from time to place. The essays are thematically organized around farms and wildernesses in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Some of these essays are autobiographical. "Red Legs Kicking," for example, recounts Leopold's boyhood experience of hunting in Iowa. The seminal essay "Thinking Like a Mountain" recalls another hunting experience later in life that was formative for Leopold's later views. Here Leopold describes the death of a she-wolf killed by his party during a time when conservationists were operating under the assumption that elimination of top predators would make game plentiful. The essay provides a non-technical characterization of the trophic cascade where the removal of single species carries serious implications for the rest of the ecosystem. [2]
The book ends with a section of philosophical essays grouped together under the heading "The Upshot". Here Leopold explores ironies of conservation: in order to promote wider appreciation of wild nature and engender necessary political support, one encourages recreational usage of wilderness that ultimately destroys it. Musings on "trophies" contrasts the way that some need a physical specimen to prove their conquest into the wilderness, though photographs may be less damaging than a trophy head to be mounted on the wall. He suggests that the best trophy is the experience of wilderness itself, along with its character-building aspects. Leopold also rails against the way that policy makers need to find an economic motive for conservation. In the concluding essay, "The Land Ethic", Leopold delves into a more appropriate rationale for conservation. In "The Ecological Conscience" section, he wrote: "Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land." Leopold felt it was generally agreed that more conservation education was needed; however quantity and content were up for debate. He believed that land is not a commodity to be possessed; rather, humans must have mutual respect for Earth in order not to destroy it. He philosophizes that humans will cease to be free if they have no wild spaces in which to roam.
Leopold's home, Aldo Leopold Shack and Farm, was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and was uplisted to National Historic Landmark status in 2009.
The organized environmental movement is represented by a wide range of non-governmental organizations or NGOs that seek to address environmental issues in the United States. They operate on local, national, and international scales. Environmental NGOs vary widely in political views and in the ways they seek to influence the environmental policy of the United States and other governments.
In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resources." The main competing paradigms are anthropocentrism, physiocentrism, and theocentrism. Environmental ethics exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.
A land ethic is a philosophy or theoretical framework about how, ethically, humans should regard the land. The term was coined by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) in his A Sand County Almanac (1949), a classic text of the environmental movement. There he argues that there is a critical need for a "new ethic", an "ethic dealing with human's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it".
Aldo Leopold was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac (1949), which has been translated into fourteen languages and has sold more than two million copies.
J. Baird Callicott is an American philosopher whose work has been at the forefront of the new field of environmental philosophy and ethics. He is a University Distinguished Research Professor and a member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies and the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of North Texas. Callicott held the position of Professor of Philosophy and Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point from 1969 to 1995, where he taught the world's first course in environmental ethics in 1971. From 1994 to 2000, he served as vice president then president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. Other distinguished positions include visiting professor of philosophy at Yale University; the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of Hawaiʻi; and the University of Florida.
Ecocentrism is a term used by environmental philosophers and ecologists to denote a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centered, system of values. The justification for ecocentrism usually consists in an ontological belief and subsequent ethical claim. The ontological belief denies that there are any existential divisions between human and non-human nature sufficient to claim that humans are either (a) the sole bearers of intrinsic value or (b) possess greater intrinsic value than non-human nature. Thus the subsequent ethical claim is for an equality of intrinsic value across human and non-human nature, or biospherical egalitarianism.
Diet for a New America is a 1987 bestselling nonfiction book by John Robbins. The book links the impacts of factory farming on human health, animal welfare and the environment, in an "animal-rights, pro-environment, vegetarian message." In 1991, KCET produced it as the documentary, Diet for a New America: Your Health, Your Planet.
Warwick Fox is an Australian-UK philosopher. He is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Central Lancashire, and his books include Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism;Ethics and the Built Environment (ed.); A Theory of General Ethics: Human Relationships, Nature, and the Built Environment; and On Beautiful Days Such as This: A Philosopher's Search for Love, Work, Place, Meaning, and Suchlike. His main areas of philosophical interest are environmental philosophy, General Ethics, and the nature of the interior lives of humans and other animals.
In environmental philosophy, ecological self is central to the school of Experiential Deep Ecology, which, based on the work of Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss, argues that through the process of self-actualisation, one transcends the notions of the individuated "egoic" self and arrives at a position of an ecological self. So long as one is working within the narrower concept of self, Næss argues, environmentally responsible behaviour is a form of altruism, a "doing good for the other", which historically has been a precarious ethical basis, usually involved in exhorting others to "be good". Næss argues that in his Ecosophy, the enlargement of the ego-self to the eco-self results in environmentally responsible behaviour as a form of self-interest.
Ricardo Rozzi is a Chilean ecologist and philosopher who is professor at the University of North Texas and the Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG). His research combines the two disciplines through the study of the interrelations between the ways of knowing and inhabiting the natural world, proposing a dynamic continuous reciprocal feedback between both domains.
The Aldo Leopold Shack and Farm is a historic farm on Levee Road in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. The property was acquired in the 1930s as a family summer retreat by the noted conservationist and writer Aldo Leopold and is the landscape that inspired his conservation ethic and the writing of his best-known work, A Sand County Almanac. The property is now owned and managed by the Aldo Leopold Foundation, which provides tours and other educational programs on the property and the adjacent visitors center. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2009.
Conservation in the United States can be traced back to the 19th century with the formation of the first National Park. Conservation generally refers to the act of consciously and efficiently using land and/or its natural resources. This can be in the form of setting aside tracts of land for protection from hunting or urban development, or it can take the form of using less resources such as metal, water, or coal. Usually, this process of conservation occurs through or after legislation on local or national levels is passed.
Biocentrism, in a political and ecological sense, as well as literally, is an ethical point of view that extends inherent value to all living things. It is an understanding of how the earth works, particularly as it relates to its biosphere or biodiversity. It stands in contrast to anthropocentrism, which centers on the value of humans. The related ecocentrism extends inherent value to the whole of nature.
Michael Paul Nelson is an environmental scholar, writer, teacher, speaker, consultant, and Professor of environmental philosophy and ethics at Oregon State University. Nelson is also the philosopher in residence of the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Project, a senior fellow with the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written word, and the co-founder and co-director of the Conservation Ethics Group. From 2012 to 2022 he served as the Lead Principal Investigator for the H.J. Andrews Long-Term Ecological Research Program and held the Ruth H. Spaniol Chair in Renewable Resources at Oregon State.
Thinking like a mountain is a term coined by Aldo Leopold in his book A Sand County Almanac. In the section entitled "Sketches Here and There" Leopold discusses the thought process as a holistic view on where one stands in the entire ecosystem. To think like a mountain means to have a complete appreciation for the profound interconnectedness of the elements in the ecosystems. It is an ecological exercise using the intricate web of the natural environment rather than thinking as an isolated individual.
Environmental stewardship refers to the responsible use and protection of the natural environment through active participation in conservation efforts and sustainable practices by individuals, small groups, nonprofit organizations, federal agencies, and other collective networks. Aldo Leopold (1887–1949) championed environmental stewardship in land ethics, exploring the ethical implications of "dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it."
Bill Jordan, more formally William R. Jordan III, is an American botanist and journalist who has played a leading role in the development and critique of ecological restoration as a means of developing an environmentalism that is philosophically more coherent, psychologically more productive, politically more robust, and ecologically more effective. His critique has had a significant influence on environmentalism in the United States and abroad.
Eric T. Freyfogle is a research professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and Swanlund Chair Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a well- known writer and lecturer on nature and culture, on environmental and natural-resource challenges, and on private property considered as a dynamic, socially constructed institution. He has long been active in state and national conservation causes, including service on the Boards of Directors of the National Wildlife Federation and the Illinois-based Prairie Rivers Network.
The relationship between animal ethics and environmental ethics concerns the differing ethical consideration of individual nonhuman animals—particularly those living in spaces outside of direct human control—and conceptual entities such as species, populations and ecosystems. The intersection of these two fields is a prominent component of vegan discourse.
