Selection 4 Summary

In the article "A sand County Almanac" Aldo Leopold talks about the importance of an ethical relationship with the environment. Aldo starts by telling an anecdote about when he killed a wolf. Its this experience that opened his eyes to the lack of environmental ethics. Ethics are the actions that have replaced free for all competition in the human race. It is a type of "symbiosis" that allows us to cooperate. Ethics have been growing over the years to extend over many areas but still there are no ethics for humans relation with the land. He then states that ethics evolved from the premise that people are interdependent parts of a community. Ethics allow the community o survive and the parts to cooperate. A land ethic would expand the community to encompass soils, waters, plants and animals. He believes an ethical relation can't be formed until people develop respect, admiration and love for the environment. A big reason for this is that the educational and economic systems are pulling us in the opposite direction. The practice of conservation while meaning well does not understand the land or its uses.