Earth Keepers
After watching the devastation of America’s wildlife and collapse of ecosystems, in 1949 Aldo Leopold challenged America calling for the development of new environmental ethic he called “the land ethic.” While Leopold’s teachings remain foundational to understandings of land use, wildlife management, and environmental ethics, it is important that we continue to build off and broaden Leopold’s ethic by addressing the scale, complexity and intersectionality of today’s environmental problems. Speaking to this, Leopold noted, “no important change in human conduct is ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphases, our loyalties, our affections, and our convictions. The proof that conservation has not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact that philosophy, ethics, and religion have not yet heard of it” (The Ecological Conscience).
