Leopold's The Land Ethic

"In short, the plant succession steered the course of history; the pioneer simply demonstrated, for good or ill, what successions inhered in the land." (Leopold)

In the early days of America, I don’t think the settlers really cared what they did to the plants and the environment that they where settling. They where most likely just trying to survive no matter what the cost and that in turn hurt the land they were living on.  It would be interesting if the pioneers knew what they would ultimately do to the land if they would change anything in the way they settled.  I would think they would try to change a couple of things but it would be really hard change most of their practices. It’s hard for people to empathize with nature because people can’t relate to nature especially when they are more worried about what they need to do in order to survive themselves. Also, if they wanted to change the way they did something they might not have had the technology or knowledge in order to change it. With modern technology, we are able to see more of the long term effects of everything. Back in the day they couldn’t see what they would ultimately do to the land.

Rolling Hills of Bluegrass by Ulrlch Burkhalter posted on flickr

"One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value." (Leopold)

I think this is the biggest obstacle to a conservation system in society today. Everything in the world revolves around money and if something that has no economic value, society doesn’t really care about it. People will be more likely to want to save something if it benefits them in the long run economically. Songbirds and wildflowers aren’t things that come to mind when you think about economic growth. This might be the wrong way to think but I don’t know if society as a whole will ever change this way of thinking. The one way that we could begin to change this way of thought is to start teaching the value of these things early on in school and emphasizing it throughout school. This will bring up a new generation that sees the value of nature and will think of new ways to conserve it but it will take a lot of years in order for this to happen.

Rise and Fall of Ecological Economics by Mark Sagoff posted on the Breakthrough

"In each field one group (A) regards the land as soil, and its function as commodity-production; another group (B) regards the land as a biota, and its function as something broader." (Leopold)

To me it sounds like group A are more scientists and/or business people while group B are more, for lack of a better word, tree huggers. Group A seems to care about the land just enough not to ruin it and make it unusable for the future. Group B also care about the land but they don’t want to hurt the whole ecosystem that it comes with also. I think that we need viewpoints from both of these groups in order to help conserve the land and to educate others to help others conserve the land. Group A and B seem to even each other out and come to a happy medium in order to help all aspects of the land.

Tree Hugger picture by Narendra Shrestha posted on NBC News

Leopold, A. (2011). The Land Ethic. In University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future (pp.58-77). Acton, MA: Copley Custom Textbooks