Aldo Leopold
January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948
Location: Burlington, Iowa
Occupation: author, ecologist, environmentalist, and forester
Known for: Conservation, land health, land ethic, ecological conscience
Works: A Sand County Almanac, 1949
Conservation
A forester by trade, Aldo Leopold was an avid conservationist who sought to teach others the value of a land ethic: that we are responsible for our impact on the environment. He and others started the very first prairie reconstruction as part of the University of Wisconsin’s arboretum. He also served at the president of the Wilderness Society starting in 1935. Leopold observed the world around him and published his observations in a collection of essays called the Sand County Almanac
Quotes (a few examples)
Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization. Wilderness was never a homogenous raw material. It was very diverse. The differences in the product are known as cultures. The rich diversity of the world's cultures reflects a corresponding diversity, In the wilds that gave them birth...
A thing is right only when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the community; and the community includes the soil, water, fauna and flora, as well as the people.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949
The objective is to teach the student to see the land, to understand what he sees, and enjoy what he understands. I say land rather than wildlife, because wildlife cannot be understood without understanding the landscape as a whole...
The Role of Wildlife in a Liberal Education
from The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays