Reflections on Aldo Leopold's "Land Ethic"

The season of long, dark, cold evenings seems to be upon us, even though our autumnal afternoons remain beautifully warm.  Additionally, for the last few weeks I've been battling some sort of nasty virus accompanied by a most persistent cough. As a result, I've been spending more time than usual indoors, my birding adventures limited to watching the birds that visit my backyard feeders.  But the upside, I suppose, is that I've had a chance to do plenty of reading.

Over the last two evenings, I enjoyed reading Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac (which is not long), along with a couple of his essays on conservation.  He writes of the natural world in such beautiful poetic prose that is somewhat old-fashioned and entirely enchanting - I highly recommend his work!

In the late 1940's, naturalist and conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote in his essay The Land Ethic,

"It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for the land, and a high regard for its value.  By value, I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense."

He goes on,

"Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic [a respect for the community which we are a part of, which includes soil, water, plants, and animals] is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land.  Your true modern is separated from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets.  He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow.  Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a scenic area, he is bored stiff...  Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural land products suit him better than the originals.  In short, land is something he has 'outgrown.'"

And this was written 70 years ago!  If 70 years ago we were thought to be separated from the land by "innumerable physical gadgets," think how much worse it is today!

On Halloween night (which you now know I thoroughly dislike), the first thought that struck me upon seeing the droves of children, teenagers and parents out roaming the streets by the hundreds (quite literally) was, "Where are all these people on a regular evening?"  In our town at least, the majority of them are certainly not outdoors, playing in the park, riding bikes, walking dogs or even doing yard work!  I would be willing to lay money on the fact that the overwhelming majority of them are inside their houses, their rooms, in front of screens: TV screens, computer monitors, cell phones, watching shows, playing video games, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.......

We've often commented, in the tranquility of a beautiful sun-shiny day at a local wetland wildlife refuge, how funny it is that there are not more people there.  Though hundreds of thousands live nearby, we are usually among a small handful of visitors; sometimes we are entirely alone.  We have an idea of where everyone else is and how they are occupied, and of course that is their prerogative (and we are inwardly thankful to have the place to ourselves), but we shake our heads in wonder that anyone would choose to be anywhere else other than soaking their souls in nature.

For here in the wild lands there is quiet, there is respite, there is space to breathe and rest and think; there is a gentle breeze, warm sun, fresh air, cleansing rain, the sounds of wildlife and water and wind. 

Here, there is beauty and peace and quiet joy, given freely in abundance.

It puzzles me that in a world riddled with stress, anxiety, depression and obesity, plagued by overwhelming consumer debt and crippling discontent despite an accumulation of way too much stuff, very few people seem to take advantage of a free, natural cure.  So few take time to slow down and let their souls glory in the peace and beauty of nature, to find freedom from all that ails in the solitude and surrender of just being in the presence of creation and Creator.

Instead, these same folks are at home, in isolation (different from solitude, mind you) in front of screens scrolling, clicking, watching mindlessly.  Or, they are running running running around, chasing after the next thing, packed into malls, shopping centers, theaters, restaurants, throwing their hard-earned money (or credit cards) at more and more stuff stuff stuff, trying in vain to find satisfaction, entertainment, fulfillment, trying in vain to acquire all the things that will mark them as successful, powerful, beautiful, desirable, worthwhile.

But of course all of this is vanity, a chasing after the wind.  It would do the soul a great deal more good to spend some time out in the wind - on a rocky shore, a mountain top, an open grassland - letting the wind tug at your hair and clear your mind, bringing tears to your eyes as it chills your face and stills your soul.

A red nose and chapped lips is a small price to pay for a mind at peace, cleared of the cobwebs and dust that accumulate through everyday life in our filthy society.

And that, of course, is just one of the innumerable benefits of protecting wild lands, why we must develop Leopold's land ethic.  We must protect these places in order to protect ourselves.  In a hurried, harried, hassled and hectic society marked by dissipation, disillusion and discontent, we must have places of beauty and serenity to which the wise among us can retreat from daily life to reconnect with the natural world.  Without the protection of wild lands... I shudder to think what would become of the last of us who use them!

In conclusion, as Leopold himself said, we must

"...quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem.  Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient.  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."

Let us always strive to do the right thing.  Not the right thing by our pocketbooks and own personal gain, crushing other members of the community - human and nonhuman alike - to get ahead, but the right thing which is truly right, the thing that is right for all members of the community, including the land itself.  For in preserving these wild places, places like our wildlife refuges and other oft-maligned patches of marshy, undesirable land, we are in fact preserving ourselves.

If your mind needs an airing and your soul a stilling, there is certainly no shortage of well-known, inspiring beauty spots to visit in California, from mountainous National Parks to coastal National Seashores.  But you could also get off the beaten path, so to speak, and seek solitude at one of our National Wildlife Refuges.  In my part of the San Joaquin Valley, I enjoy the San Luis, Merced, and San Joaquin River refuges.  To find a refuge in your own area, use the NWRS Refuge Locator Map.