Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold was an American forester, ecologist and writer who worked for the US Forest Service in the Southwest and later taught wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin. In A Sand County Almanac, published shortly after his death, he proposed a land ethic that widens the moral community to include soils, waters, plants and animals. The biotic community as a whole, rather than the individual organism, becomes the unit of moral concern.

Key ideas

• Ethics should extend from human communities to the land: soils, waters, plants and animals.
• Human beings are plain members and citizens of the biotic community, not its conquerors.
• A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community.
• Conservation requires a change in values, not only in economic incentives.

Major works

• Game Management (1933)
• A Sand County Almanac (1949)

In the conversation

• Reading group Reading group: Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, from the shack to the land ethic Anand Pillai · 5 replies
• Discussion Trustee or plain citizen? Nasr’s khalifa and Leopold’s land community Reza Tehrani · 5 replies