Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold (January 11th 1887 - April 21st 1948) was a American ecologist , forester and environmentalist. He influenced the development of modern environmental ethics and the movement for the protection of natural spaces. Aldo Leopold is regarded as the father of the management of environmental protection in the United States and was always a fishing eternal and hunter. Leopold died into 1948 of an heart attack, combatant a fire in a firm neighbor.

Life and work

Aldo Leopold was born with Burlington in the Iowa. It grew in contact with nature (the fields, the trees, the meadows, the brooks, rivers…). Its writings on nature are remarkable for their uprightness and their simplicity. Its representations of various natural environments that he had traversed, or had known during many years, show its impressive intimacy with what exists and occurs in nature. It seemed to know a landscape just like a audiophile knows its musical collection, or a mother knows the body and the personality of her child.

Leopold followed its years of secondary studies in the prestigious school of Lawrenceville in the New Jersey, before continuing its studies in the university school of Sylviculture of Yale. It obtained its control in this science in 1909. Leopold had developed a particular perception of nature in terms of ecology, beauty and mystery, as well as in term of knowledge. Following that, its professional life gathered its passions for sylviculture, ecology and the writing.

Leopold was useful during 19 years in the American forest service, working in the south-west of the United States (New Mexico and Arizona) before being transferred into 1924 towards a laboratory from forest products in Madison in Wisconsin. In 1928, it left the forest service and started to work on work with independent contracts. It made mainly environmental monitoring through the United States.

In 1933, it was named professor in the section of management of the agricultural economics at the university of Wisconsin-Madison. He lived in a modest house of two floors close to the campus, with his wife and his children. He taught in this university until his death. Today, its house is counted among the official monuments of the town of Madison and is occupied by Elisabeth Loniello. Since, one of its sons, Luna, became a recognized hydrologist.

Defender of the safeguarding of the environment and natural spaces, Leopold was one of the founders of the Company of Natural spaces in 1935. Named in its honor, natural space Aldo Leopold is at the borders of the national forest of Gila, in New Mexico. Leopold contributed to obtaining the management of Gila as a natural space. Consequently, the national forest of Gila became in 1924 the first natural space officialized by the US government. One often regards the creation of the national forest of Gila and natural space Aldo Leopold as the starting point of the modern movement of conservation of natural spaces in the United States.

Leopold highly criticized the evil which he thought of being frequently made with natural spaces by the sovereign property of the company on certain grounds. He thought that safety and prosperity resulting from mechanization gave from now on people time to reflect on the importance of nature and to learn some more on what occurs there.

has Sand County Almanac

Leopold wrote has Sand County Almanac , delivers read by million people, who contributed to public information and the rise of the movement of environmental protection and to an increased interest of the populations for science ecologist. In the same way, work of the Company of Natural spaces and Leopold was precursors for the environmental movement joined together around the world Day of the environment.

Published in 1949, little time after the death of Leopold, has Sand County Almanac is a combination of natural history and philosophy. This book is mainly known for the following quotation, which defines its environmental ethics: “an action is right, when the purpose of it is to preserve the integrity, the stability and the beauty of the biotic community. It is reprehensible when it has another goal. ”

Conservation

In “environmental ethics”, a chapter of has Sand County Almanac , Leopold seeks to define environmental protection. He writes: “Protection is a harmonious state between the men and the ground. ”

Leopold estimated that the company needed, in a general way, of a better education on environmental protection; however, the quantity and the contents of this education were prone to debate.

At the time where he wrote (towards the end of the year 1940), Leopold summarized the essence of education in the environmental field with: obey the law, vote like one asks it to you, join some organizations and protect your environment according to its profitability; the government will make the remainder. He criticized this “formula highly”. For him, it was useful before all the personal interests, but he never raised morals questions on this subject.

This fact made it come to the conclusion that the obligations do not have any significance without conscience, and that the problem to which the company faces is the extension of the social conscience of people with regard to nature. At the time where he wrote, he thought that environmental protection had been reduced to its strict minimum, and this without any projection in philosophy or the religion.

Morals questions

With the hope to raise morals questions as well as educational challenges, Leopold proposed the example of the question of the arable land zone of the South-west of Wisconsin, which slipped unrelentingly towards the sea. In 1933, the company offered its assistance to the farmers who undertook repairing actions during five years. Once the completed quinquennial period, the farmers continued only the practices which offered a personal economic gain to them, scorning those which were profitable for the community. In 1937, the legislature of Wisconsin made vote a law which made it possible to the farmers to govern their agricultural own rules on their grounds. Even with the additional motivations offered by the free engineering service and the possibility of renting specialized machines, the farmers continued to be unaware of the rules which would profit at all the community, since no law had been voted in this direction. A light progress however was noticed, but far from being sufficient to raise the major questions and to tackle the relevant problems in environmental protection.

External bonds

Fondation Sand County
Prix Leopold of environmental protection
Fondation Aldo Leopold
École university of sylviculture of Yale
'' Thinking Like has Mountain ''

Source

Translation of the article of English language of Wikipédia (version of April 25th, 2007).

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