Leopold Land Pyramid

Aldo Leopold is another American environmentalist who was dominant in the development of modern environmental ethics. Aldo was more for holistic ethics regarding land. According to him, “An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct.” He describes in his article that politics and economics are advanced symbioses in which free-for-all competition has been replaced by co-operative mechanism with an ethical content.” He thought that ethics direct individuals to cooperate with each other for the mutual benefit of all. Also he believes that community should be

Since 1975 Grizzly Bears have been on the Endangered Species List. Besides the Endangered Species List, another solution was to relocate the bears to Yellowstone National Park. Yet, another solution that is taking place, is to increase funding to save the habitats of the bears.If the Grizzly Bear went extinct, the biomes and ecosystems would dwindle away and also be lost. If the Grizzly Bear went extinct the spreading of seeds for the plants it feeds on will cease, causing very little plants to grow. This would then affect the wildlife populations because there would be little to no vegetation for the animals to thrive on. Without the Bear the herd populations would increase and die off because of the scarce food around. The cause of the Bear’s death is the over hunting of the animal. Humanity can fix this by putting in additional laws that restrict and prohibit the hunting of these Bears, and not rely heavily on the Endangered Species List law. The solution that I offer is an alternative use of funding. Instead of putting money to technology and its opportunities, we turn that money and use it to help the preservation of these Bears. We could also, use the money to create more land for the animals to live on and thrive on. Humanity can counteract these events by supporting the laws in place and giving their full attention to this pressing matter. For what humanity takes away we must give back in order to continue a way of life: life where anything can

“Pinchot left Europe with some convictions about forestry. He had learned… that trees are a crop… Pinchot brought the gospel that forestry was the art of using a forest without destroying it… [He] preached that through the use of proper methods a forest could be both harvested and preserved.” (McGeary 23) This conviction reveals the underlying theory to all of the conservation movement, that nature should be viewed in the confines of its economic value. For example, Pinchot’s policy did not allow for the continuation of old growth forests, but demanded that they be cut down and let new trees to grow back in their place. “He clashed repeatedly during his career with conservationists who were basically devoted to preserving the trees.” (McGeary 87)

Part A: Aldo Leopold wrote about the connection humans should have with land and/or nature. In part 1 of the book A Sand County Almanac reveals what Leopold family sees and does on a weekend refuges from the “shack”. The shack is a national historic landmark which was a rebuilt chicken

A McVay “The Land Ethic” Response “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise,” said by none other, Aldo Leopold. In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold, an American environmentalist, brought a new idea to the environmentalist’s table: “land ethic.” His idea of a land ethic is a moral responsibility of humans to the natural Earth. Leopold’s idea has been discussed since the publication by a wide variety of people, from the public to scholars. Since

Question 1 “The Land Ethic” written by Aldo Leopold was critiqued by J. Baird Callicott. “The Land Ethic” in short explained the idea that humans are not superior to animals or species on earth, but humans should live on earth as simple members. (Leopold, 2013) Callicott found three things that lead

Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac Although Leopold’s love of great expanses of wilderness is readily apparent, his book does not cry out in defense of particular tracts of land about to go under the axe or plow, but rather deals with the minutiae, the details, of often unnoticed plants and animals, all the little things that, in our ignorance, we have left out of our managed acreages but which must be present to add up to balanced ecosystems and a sense of quality and wholeness in the landscape.

Of our 45 presidents, Theodore Roosevelt is not one that will be easily forgotten. During his time, his accomplishments wrought a change in the United States, and are still impacting us today, even long after his death. Among his many notable feats, many consider his conservation efforts specifically to be his legacy. He had a love and passion for nature, and he even became a permanent fixture of nature when his face was carved into a wall of rock, as one of the four presidents of Mount Rushmore. During the 1900s, “conservation” was not a word often thrown around in conversation. Today however, conflicts such as limited resources, conservation, climate change, and environment are words that have been on everyone’s lips at one point or

Conservation groups like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, SCI, Pheasant Forever, and Ducks Unlimited were created to urge people who supports hunting or conservation to preserve what little land we have left. Looking back in history hunters didn’t care about conserving land or animals but in this generation hunters and conservationist are now the driving force behind conservation.

Personifying the Land “We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in”- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (251)

Leopold’s land pyramid describes the hierarchical dynamics of the biotic community. Based upon what we learned in class, a biotic community is the relationship between soil and animals. It is a sum of all the parts within the community. The pyramid represents layers within the biotic community. The bottom layer is the soil. A plant layer rests upon the soil layer, an insect layer lies atop the plants, a bird and rodent layer rests upon the insects. The pyramid works its way up the various animal groups until it finally comes to the peak layer, which consists of the lager carnivorous animals. Leopold places humans in the top layer.

A Sand County Almanac The first remark Aldo Leopold made that genuinely caught my attention was during February when Leopold was talking about the spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. Leopold discusses the work put into heating a house in the middle of winter. The cutting, splitting, hauling, and piling of oak would make people realize the amount of work that goes into the comfort of a warm house while most people sit next to a radiator and pay no attention to where the heat comes from. Nevertheless, what the oak seedlings would have conquered in order to become a tree. The oak tree has endured centuries of history before it could become a source of heat for a home. The general population does not understand how much effort and time goes

Bryson accommodates an unforeseen conclusion that anticipates the vagueness about the indistinctness of human nature itself. Bill Bryson attitude justifies why The National Park Services played a role in extinction and deforestation. If we all played a role we could reduce the risk of extinction of the plants and animals

Another adjustment to the microscope, and we can examine Leopold's biocentric opinion of how environmental ethics should be governed. His approach enlarges the moral category to include soils, waters, plants and animals and claims our obligation is to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. Philosophers Devall and Sessions further define the biocentric view with the concept of deep ecology. Devall and Sessions argue that "the well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life have value in themselves. These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes." (503)

During his time, Aldo Leopold was a conservationist who believed in the longevity of the land and that we should protect it, even if we must protect the land from ourselves. While this was an unpopular opinion, realizing that the land and animals naturally work together in a symbiotic relationship to protect one another was very apparent to Leopold. He believed that humans should be doing our best to lessen our impact on the environment. Time has caught up with Leopold’s ideologies and it is time that our efforts and contributions to the earth did too.