For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays And Other Writings - Hardcover

Leopold, Aldo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559637633 ISBN 13: 9781559637633

Publisher: Island Press, 1999

Synopsis

Aldo Leopold's classic work A Sand County Almanac is widely regarded as one of the most influential conservation books of all time. In it, Leopold sets forth an eloquent plea for the development of a "land ethic" -- a belief that humans have a duty to interact with the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise "the land" in ways that ensure their well-being and survival.For the Health of the Land, a new collection of rare and previously unpublished essays by Leopold, builds on that vision of ethical land use and develops the concept of "land health" and the practical measures landowners can take to sustain it. The writings are vintage Leopold -- clear, sensible, and provocative, sometimes humorous, often lyrical, and always inspiring. Joining them together are a wisdom and a passion that transcend the time and place of the author's life.The book offers a series of forty short pieces, arranged in seasonal "almanac" form, along with longer essays, arranged chronologically, which show the development of Leopold's approach to managing private lands for conservation ends. The final essay is a never before published work, left in pencil draft at his death, which proposes the concept of land health as an organizing principle for conservation. Also featured is an introduction by noted Leopold scholars J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle that provides a brief biography of Leopold and places the essays in the context of his life and work, and an afterword by conservation biologist Stanley A. Temple that comments on Leopold's ideas from the perspective of modern wildlife management.The book's conservation message and practical ideas are as relevant today as they were when first written over fifty years ago. For the Health of the Land represents a stunning new addition to the literary legacy of Aldo Leopold.

About this title

Review:

After helping to establish several federally protected wilderness areas and wildlife preserves in the American Southwest, the famed conservationist Aldo Leopold moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in 1924. There he worked for the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory, studying ways in which to make logging both more productive and less damaging. While in Madison, he also took time to write short articles for a newspaper, The Wisconsin Agriculturalist and Farmer. Many of them are gathered in this collection of previously uncollected prose pieces. Those who worked the land, Leopold believed, were best equipped to protect it; his essays touch on such matters as providing safe havens for migratory waterfowl and predatory birds, weighing the merits of artificially planted windbreaks against those of natural fencerows, and arguing that farmers should take care not to plow over plants that provide food for wildlife. Always he urges that his readers think ahead to consider the natural implications of both feast and famine. "Conservation," he notes,

is keeping the resource in working order, as well as preventing overuse. Resources may get out of order before they are exhausted, sometimes while they are still abundant. Conservation, therefore, is a positive exercise of skill and insight, not merely a negative exercise of abstinence or caution.

Admirers of Leopold's work will find much of value--but little that will be wholly new--in these pages. --Gregory McNamee

About the Author:

J. Baird Callicott is University Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and formerly Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Texas. He is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy and author or editor of a score of books and author of dozens of journal articles, encyclopedia articles, and book chapters in environmental philosophy and ethics. Callicott has served the International Society for Environmental Ethics as President and Yale University as Bioethicist-in-Residence, and he has served the UNT Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies as chair. His research goes forward simultaneously on four main fronts: theoretical environmental ethics; comparative environmental ethics and philosophy; the philosophy of ecology and conservation policy; and biocomplexity in the environment, coupled natural and human systems (sponsored by the National Science Foundation). Callicott is perhaps best known as the leading contemporary exponent of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic and is currently exploring an Aldo Leopold Earth ethic in response to global climate change. He taught the world’s first course in environmental ethics in 1971 at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. His teaching at UNT includes graduate and undergraduate courses in ancient Greek philosophy and ethical theory in addition to environmental philosophy.


Eric T. Freyfogle is Research Professor and Swanlund Chair Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he has taught for over thirty years in the areas of natural resources, property and land use law, environmental law and policy, wildlife law, and conservation thought. His various writings include Our Oldest Task: Making Sense of Our Place in Nature (University of Chicago Press 2017), Why Conservation Is Failing and How It Can Regain Ground (Yale University Press 2006), and coauthored law school casebooks on wildlife law, natural resources law, and property law.  He has long been active in state and national conservation efforts, including service on the Boards of the National Wildlife Federation and its Illinois affiliate, Prairie Rivers Network.
 

About this edition

• Publisher: Island Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1559637633
• ISBN 13: 9781559637633
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 262
• Editor: Callicott J. Baird, Freyfogle Eric T.