A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There
Published months after Leopold died in 1949, and still the founding argument that soil, water and animals belong to a moral community rather than a balance sheet.
Published months after Leopold’s death in 1949, and the founding text of the land ethic, which argues that soil, water and animals belong to a moral community rather than a balance sheet. The Wisconsin farm essays are why people still read it; the philosophy is why it changed conservation.
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Maria Popova
The philosopher, naturalist, and pioneering conservationist Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887–April 21, 1948) takes up this question in a wonderful essay about the Rio Gavilan — a vast watershed in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental, where Leopold had spent time with his son in the 1930s and where his conservation philosophy had begun to ripen — later included in the indispensable collection A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There (public library), published months after his death.
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