The Land Ethic

The Land Ethic

By Aldo Leopold

In this essay there are two main points that Aldo tries to make. He is trying to inform all of us that there is not enough knowledge of conservation of the land. Also we as people need to stop having such an impact on the land and everything that lives on it. We do not lack the education about the environment. But we do lack the knowledge about the value of the land. Not even scientist, have the answers to all of the environmental issues going on. Rather than understanding and have the knowledge ourselves we would rather blame the government for everything that goes wrong with the land. He tries to teach all of us that we should look at the land ethics more closely. Looking at land, water, and animals as a biotic member of a family, and all have equal value. We should treat all living things as we would like to be treated.

Land is not just soil. Just as he was talking about in the essay, the land is a biotic pyramid with many levels. Each level getting larger in size as you go up the pyramid. Each level living off the pyramid level before it, for energy. If something happens to the level below, than everything else will have to adjust its living to survive. It starts with soil, gets energy from the sun, the plants get the energy from the soil, animals eat the plants, and then animals eat other animals. Then when the animals die the decay returns the energy to the soil starting the process all over. So everything has to start with the soil for every living thing to survive.

To understand the value of land, we need to understand land as a system of interdependent parts of a community and not as a commodity. We all need to each learn our place in the community of the land, and not be masters over the land. Thinking that everything is ours and doing as we want with it. We all have the responsibility to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the land and the biotic community. Right now a lot of us will abuse the land because we see it as a commodity and not us being a part of the community.

We are all responsible for the health of the land. When we think of health we all think of the health of our bodies. Each one of are organs in our body needs to be healthy and work together. Just as with our bodies the land and the biotic community needs to be healthy as well. Everything needs to work together and know its part in the biotic community to allow everything else on the earth to live.

Part II

I would have to view my own conservation philosophy as being pretty small. My view is that everything has been placed on this earth for our taking. I live life as the survival of the fittest, the strongest will survive. I have probably had a pretty harsh impact on the land.