Aldo Leopold (1887–1948)
Author of A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
About the Author
Aldo Leopold was born in Iowa in 1887 and after graduation from the Yale School of Forestry joined the U.S. Forest Service. In 1935 the University of Wisconsin created a chair of game management for him. He died in 1948, fighting a grass fire on a neighbor's farm, shortly after he had become an show more advisor on conservation to the United Nations. Barbara Kingsolver is the author of many books, including The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. show less
Works by Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac and Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology (1949) 208 copies, 3 reviews
Sand County Almanac (Outdoor Essays & Reflections): With Essays on Conservation from Round River 37 copies
L'ethique de la terre: Suivi de penser comme une montagne (Petite Bibliothèque Payot) (French Edition) (1933) 7 copies, 1 review
Blue River 5 copies
Denken als een berg het jaar rond op de zandgronden : met enkele schetsen van her en der en een aanzet tot milieu-ethiek : ecosofie (2004) 3 copies
Wherefore Wildlife Ecology? 2 copies
Some Lessons: Volume II 1 copy
Leopold Education Project 1 copy
A Sand County Almnac 1 copy
Bir Kum Yöresi Almanağı 1 copy
Deer irruptions 1 copy
Notes on Game Administration in Germany Old World Methods Vary Greatly from Those of the New World 1 copy
Ein Jahr im Sand County 1 copy
Associated Works
Ympäristöfilosofia : kirjoituksia ympäristönsuojelun eettisistä perusteista (2010) — Contributor, some editions — 13 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Leopold, Aldo
- Legal name
- Leopold, Rand Aldo
- Birthdate
- 1887-01-11
- Date of death
- 1948-04-21
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Yale University (MA|1909)
- Occupations
- conservationist
ecologist
forester
university professor - Organizations
- United States Forest Service
University of Wisconsin-Madison
U.S. Forest Products Laboratory
Albuquerque Wildlife Federation (founder)
Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce (secretary)
New Mexico Game Protection Association (founder) - Awards and honors
- Aldo Leopold Forest (Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA)
Aldo Leopold Nature Center (Monona, Wisconsin, USA)
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture (Iowa State University)
Leopold's Preserve (Broad Run, Virginia, USA)
Conservation Hall of Fame (National Wildlife Federation)
John Burroughs Medal - Relationships
- Hamerstrom, Frances (student)
Leopold, Aldo Starker (son)
Leopold, Luna B. (son)
Bradley, Nina Leopold (daughter)
Leopold, Aldo Carl (son)
Leopold, Estella (daughter) - Short biography
- [from Leopold's Preserve website]
Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa, on January 11, 1887. As a boy he developed a lively interest in field omithology and natural history, and after schooling in Burlington, at Lawrenceville Prep in New Jersey, and the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, he enrolled in the Yale forestry school, the first graduate school of forestry in the United States. Graduating with a masters in 1909, he joined the U.S. Forest Service, by 1912 was supervisor of the million-acre Carson National Forest, and in 1924 accepted the position of Associate Director of the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, the principal research institution of the Forest Service at that time. In 1933 he was appointed to the newly created chair in Game Management at the University of Wisconsin, a position he held until his death.
Leopold was throughout his life at the forefront of the conservation movement. Indeed, he is widely acknowledged as the father of wildlife conservation in America. Though perhaps best known for A Sand County Almanac, he was also an internationally respected scientist, authored the classic text Game Management, which is still in use today, wrote more than 350 articles, most on scientific and policy matters, and was an advisor on conservation to the United Nations. He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1948 while helping his neighbors fight a grass fire. He has subsequently been named to the National Wildlife Federation's Conservation Hall of Fame, and in 1978, the John Burroughs Memorial Association awarded him the John Burroughs Medal for his lifework and, in particular, for A Sand County Almanac.[from City of Albuquerque (New Mexico, USA) website]
Aldo Leopold, considered the father of modern wildlife ecology, spent many years of his life in New Mexico and left behind an impressive environmental legacy in our great state.
Among his many accomplishments are the creation of the Gila Wilderness near Silver City (the first proclaimed Wilderness area in the U.S.) and the foundation of the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation. He also strongly advocated for the responsible growth of Albuquerque during his time here.
In 1909, Leopold graduated from the Yale School of Forestry and started a career with the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona and New Mexico. 2009 marks the 100th Anniversary of his arrival to the Southwest and the beginning of his celebrated career.
Leopold had a special love for Albuquerque. It was here where he met his wife Estella and lived in a house near the Rio Grande. In 1918, Leopold served as the Secretary of Albuquerque's Chamber of Commerce. At this time he promoted the creation of what would later become the Rio Grande Valley State Park. Leopold's vision and efforts also eventually lead to the creation of the Rio Grande Zoological Park, Botanical Gardens, and the Rio Grande Nature Center. - Cause of death
- heart attack
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Burlington, Iowa, USA
- Places of residence
- Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Baraboo, Wisconsin, USA
Arizona, USA
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA - Place of death
- Baraboo, Wisconsin, USA
- Burial location
- Aspen Grove Cemetery, Burlington, Iowa, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot… We of the minority see a law of diminishing returns in progress; our opponents do not.”
Some of my favorite writing is contained within these essays: stunning, intelligent, nostalgic, artistic, meticulously-crafted lines that continued from the first page to the last beautiful sentence. I was at once filled with wonder, then with a tragic sense of loss, show more moved beyond my expectations by the heartbreaking simplicity and overwhelming significance of the ideas contained within this too short book.
“If I were to tell a preacher of the adjoining church that the road crew has been burning history books in his cemetery, under the guise of mowing weeds, he would be amazed and uncomprehending. How could a weed be a book?…
It might be wise to prohibit at once all teaching of real botany and real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms about the floristic price of his good life.”
A pivotal piece of environmentalist literature, A Sand County Almanac does many things, and all of them with extreme care and precision. The first half of the text comprises a walk through nature of sorts, snippets of life on Aldo Leopold’s farm throughout the months and seasons. Interspersed between descriptions of the various inhabitants of his farm are explorations of humankind’s—with an emphasis on the local and national—relationship with the Land.
“When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
Leopold, who in the latter half of this book defines in more direct terms the idea of a “land ethic”, shares within these first intimate and reflective passages his personal philosophy concerning the nature of wilderness, the biotic community as a whole, and how we as a species can be a better member of it. He does so not only through showcasing the beauty of the land and wildlife he so obviously cherishes, but through a candid look at the effect we have thus far had on the natural world.
“What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked.”
Leopold does not simply philosophize whether or not we can live amongst nature and restore it, nor does he unilaterally demonize those who are imperfect members of this biotic community. He builds within the reader a great respect and understanding for the shift in mindset we must undertake in order to become better as a people, as an environmental neighbor, and as inhabitants of a planet that gives us everything.
Being myself a lover of nature, a gardener, and an Earth dweller amongst other things, this book was perfectly engineered to grab me and not let go. It has managed to dig its way under my skin, where its presence shall remain. Over the months I have spent slowly reading this book, it has sprouted within me renewed love, reverence, and fierce protectiveness of all aspects of our world. It has inspired me to continue listening to the songs of small birds who call in the night, and to cheer on the slow growing tree, to remember that I am a small, important piece of a much grander whole. show less
Some of my favorite writing is contained within these essays: stunning, intelligent, nostalgic, artistic, meticulously-crafted lines that continued from the first page to the last beautiful sentence. I was at once filled with wonder, then with a tragic sense of loss, show more moved beyond my expectations by the heartbreaking simplicity and overwhelming significance of the ideas contained within this too short book.
“If I were to tell a preacher of the adjoining church that the road crew has been burning history books in his cemetery, under the guise of mowing weeds, he would be amazed and uncomprehending. How could a weed be a book?…
It might be wise to prohibit at once all teaching of real botany and real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms about the floristic price of his good life.”
A pivotal piece of environmentalist literature, A Sand County Almanac does many things, and all of them with extreme care and precision. The first half of the text comprises a walk through nature of sorts, snippets of life on Aldo Leopold’s farm throughout the months and seasons. Interspersed between descriptions of the various inhabitants of his farm are explorations of humankind’s—with an emphasis on the local and national—relationship with the Land.
“When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
Leopold, who in the latter half of this book defines in more direct terms the idea of a “land ethic”, shares within these first intimate and reflective passages his personal philosophy concerning the nature of wilderness, the biotic community as a whole, and how we as a species can be a better member of it. He does so not only through showcasing the beauty of the land and wildlife he so obviously cherishes, but through a candid look at the effect we have thus far had on the natural world.
“What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked.”
Leopold does not simply philosophize whether or not we can live amongst nature and restore it, nor does he unilaterally demonize those who are imperfect members of this biotic community. He builds within the reader a great respect and understanding for the shift in mindset we must undertake in order to become better as a people, as an environmental neighbor, and as inhabitants of a planet that gives us everything.
Being myself a lover of nature, a gardener, and an Earth dweller amongst other things, this book was perfectly engineered to grab me and not let go. It has managed to dig its way under my skin, where its presence shall remain. Over the months I have spent slowly reading this book, it has sprouted within me renewed love, reverence, and fierce protectiveness of all aspects of our world. It has inspired me to continue listening to the songs of small birds who call in the night, and to cheer on the slow growing tree, to remember that I am a small, important piece of a much grander whole. show less
4.5/5
A classic of environmental writing that is extremely prophetic, poetic, and ahead of it's time. Written in 1947, A Sand County Almanac was rediscovered several decades later, and provided the environmental movement in the 60's with a backbone text. Leopold was a visionary in the field to be sure, ahead of his peers in western land management when considering the intrinsic value of wild spaces and species of little marketable value.
The book is broken up into four different sections, show more each having their own focus and subject. It starts with a journal of Leopold's observations on his farm in central Wisconsin. This is followed by some short vignettes focusing on trips and work that he preformed in other parts of the world, and then Some essays on various topics of personal concern. Finally, Leopold lays out his environmental ethic, that he would care to see being used more in land management and use. Particularly, I found the passages describing the last bear in Arizona, and trip he took with his brother to the Colorado river delta in Mexico to be quite enjoyable. The essay Goose Music, which covers his philosophy that the songs of geese are no less important to future generations economic production feels especially heartfelt and sincere.
Leopold personally draws his value of the natural world through wildlife; this much is clear from passages in the book describing spaces without visible forms of fauna as bleak and empty. I think this must come from his extensive history with hunting and fishing. Indeed, much of his perspective in this book comes from that lens, which comes off as a bit dated, but certainly doesn't make his views any less poignant. He makes an interesting point about hunting being the only sport where ethics are enforced only by yourself (and God), in comparison to having an audience.
I really can't get over how modern much of this book feels. Leopold outlines his ethics for land use, and much of it would still be considered radical today. He calls for a wholesale change in land management, where self-interest no longer dominates that values of the land. He asks for a reformation of ecologic education, where there is less study of bone structures and more study of relationships between species, including ourselves. He asks to refocus recreation away from building structures, amenities, and roads. It's a more venomous work than I remember it being, but necessarily so I think. The prose itself is mostly gentle and poetic.
It is clear that Leopold was traumatized by some of the work that he did for the Forest Service when he was young, especially when he took part in the federal mandate to kill wolves, and much of his later views are a product of that trauma. A Sand County Almanac was a keystone book when it was published, and unfortunately continues to remain that way. show less
A classic of environmental writing that is extremely prophetic, poetic, and ahead of it's time. Written in 1947, A Sand County Almanac was rediscovered several decades later, and provided the environmental movement in the 60's with a backbone text. Leopold was a visionary in the field to be sure, ahead of his peers in western land management when considering the intrinsic value of wild spaces and species of little marketable value.
The book is broken up into four different sections, show more each having their own focus and subject. It starts with a journal of Leopold's observations on his farm in central Wisconsin. This is followed by some short vignettes focusing on trips and work that he preformed in other parts of the world, and then Some essays on various topics of personal concern. Finally, Leopold lays out his environmental ethic, that he would care to see being used more in land management and use. Particularly, I found the passages describing the last bear in Arizona, and trip he took with his brother to the Colorado river delta in Mexico to be quite enjoyable. The essay Goose Music, which covers his philosophy that the songs of geese are no less important to future generations economic production feels especially heartfelt and sincere.
Leopold personally draws his value of the natural world through wildlife; this much is clear from passages in the book describing spaces without visible forms of fauna as bleak and empty. I think this must come from his extensive history with hunting and fishing. Indeed, much of his perspective in this book comes from that lens, which comes off as a bit dated, but certainly doesn't make his views any less poignant. He makes an interesting point about hunting being the only sport where ethics are enforced only by yourself (and God), in comparison to having an audience.
I really can't get over how modern much of this book feels. Leopold outlines his ethics for land use, and much of it would still be considered radical today. He calls for a wholesale change in land management, where self-interest no longer dominates that values of the land. He asks for a reformation of ecologic education, where there is less study of bone structures and more study of relationships between species, including ourselves. He asks to refocus recreation away from building structures, amenities, and roads. It's a more venomous work than I remember it being, but necessarily so I think. The prose itself is mostly gentle and poetic.
It is clear that Leopold was traumatized by some of the work that he did for the Forest Service when he was young, especially when he took part in the federal mandate to kill wolves, and much of his later views are a product of that trauma. A Sand County Almanac was a keystone book when it was published, and unfortunately continues to remain that way. show less
"A Sand County Almanac" is an amazing in many ways. Written in the 1940s and published posthumously in 1949, Leopold’s writing predate the mainstream environmentalist movement of the sixties and seventies by well over a decade.
To modern readers, it may feel slow moving, a culturally unfamiliar; Leopold represents a dual character of both hunter and environmentalist, two camps often dived by a political gulf today.
As you might have heard Wes Jackson say, Leopold’s legacy was his “land show more ethic.” The concept that the earth might have rights, and that, as humans, we have an obligation to steward land, was prescient for a white American. Many of his ideas are still both radical and familiar today.
In this book, Leopold offers an insightful and biting critique of the myth of progress, on that many other thought leaders built upon in subsequent decades. show less
To modern readers, it may feel slow moving, a culturally unfamiliar; Leopold represents a dual character of both hunter and environmentalist, two camps often dived by a political gulf today.
As you might have heard Wes Jackson say, Leopold’s legacy was his “land show more ethic.” The concept that the earth might have rights, and that, as humans, we have an obligation to steward land, was prescient for a white American. Many of his ideas are still both radical and familiar today.
In this book, Leopold offers an insightful and biting critique of the myth of progress, on that many other thought leaders built upon in subsequent decades. show less
Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology (LOA #238) (Library of America) by Aldo Leopold
I greatly appreciated the Library of America’s edition of Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation for how it provides such great context about Leopold, what formed him, and how and why he developed the land ethic.
The land ethic is Aldo Leopold’s great contribution to conservation and the world writ large: by means of his experiences as a hunter, wildlife observer, and forestry manager, he learned to appreciate the whole of an ecosystem. In a time in show more which apex predators were killed without much regard he recognized their loss would lead to disruption and then degradation of the whole environment. He firsthand saw the effects of broad grazing policies and was quite startled at the difference between similar ecosystems across the United States / Mexico border. Thus he encouraged every stakeholder, from the farmer to the hunter to the industrialist, to see and appreciate the land as a whole, and not just the sum of its parts.
Leopold sets out the land ethic in A Sand County Almanac. But to just dive into A Sand County Almanac will feel rather disorienting. I ended up reading this edition in the order presented but would highly recommend for other readers to consider it in the following order: the chronology presented at the end, then his letters, then his journals, and then finally A Sand County Almanac and then the collection of his other writings.
Why? From the chronology, letters, and journals you get a much better feel for Leopold the human being and his trajectory. You can better triangulate him, since he is a man of varied experiences: growing up in the Midwest, getting advanced schooling on the East Coast, working in the Southwest, and ending up back in the Midwest as the nation’s first professor of game management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
And then A Sand County Almanac, and how it is structured, makes a bit more sense. You first get introduced to Leopold the astute observer of wildlife and plant life and their symbiotic relationships. Some of his experiences in other places are introduced. And thus his land ethic makes better sense when you see how it flows from all he observed and experienced.
My bitter lament is how Leopold’s land ethic has been around for seventy-five years, is quite well known, and, if anything, has only been further buttressed by discoveries and developments in the intervening seventy-five years, and yet we collectively seem no closer to appreciating ecosystems as a whole now than they were then. It seems our trajectory overall is not as dire as Leopold had every right to expect based on how things had been going in the land for over a hundred and fifty years, so there’s that. But the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker has gone the way of the Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet. We’re still degrading land everywhere because of insistence on grazing rights and livestock, degrading farming methods, and industrial production over the health of the environment. It’s not like we aren’t receiving more evidence every day of the immense costs we are currently bearing because of these decisions, and the exponentially higher costs which our descendants will bear. And yet we persist.
Nevertheless, please do check out Leopold. I recommend the Library of America edition, but there is a lot more reading involved than in just picking up a copy of A Sand County Almanac. It is beyond time for us to uphold a more robust land ethic. show less
The land ethic is Aldo Leopold’s great contribution to conservation and the world writ large: by means of his experiences as a hunter, wildlife observer, and forestry manager, he learned to appreciate the whole of an ecosystem. In a time in show more which apex predators were killed without much regard he recognized their loss would lead to disruption and then degradation of the whole environment. He firsthand saw the effects of broad grazing policies and was quite startled at the difference between similar ecosystems across the United States / Mexico border. Thus he encouraged every stakeholder, from the farmer to the hunter to the industrialist, to see and appreciate the land as a whole, and not just the sum of its parts.
Leopold sets out the land ethic in A Sand County Almanac. But to just dive into A Sand County Almanac will feel rather disorienting. I ended up reading this edition in the order presented but would highly recommend for other readers to consider it in the following order: the chronology presented at the end, then his letters, then his journals, and then finally A Sand County Almanac and then the collection of his other writings.
Why? From the chronology, letters, and journals you get a much better feel for Leopold the human being and his trajectory. You can better triangulate him, since he is a man of varied experiences: growing up in the Midwest, getting advanced schooling on the East Coast, working in the Southwest, and ending up back in the Midwest as the nation’s first professor of game management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
And then A Sand County Almanac, and how it is structured, makes a bit more sense. You first get introduced to Leopold the astute observer of wildlife and plant life and their symbiotic relationships. Some of his experiences in other places are introduced. And thus his land ethic makes better sense when you see how it flows from all he observed and experienced.
My bitter lament is how Leopold’s land ethic has been around for seventy-five years, is quite well known, and, if anything, has only been further buttressed by discoveries and developments in the intervening seventy-five years, and yet we collectively seem no closer to appreciating ecosystems as a whole now than they were then. It seems our trajectory overall is not as dire as Leopold had every right to expect based on how things had been going in the land for over a hundred and fifty years, so there’s that. But the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker has gone the way of the Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet. We’re still degrading land everywhere because of insistence on grazing rights and livestock, degrading farming methods, and industrial production over the health of the environment. It’s not like we aren’t receiving more evidence every day of the immense costs we are currently bearing because of these decisions, and the exponentially higher costs which our descendants will bear. And yet we persist.
Nevertheless, please do check out Leopold. I recommend the Library of America edition, but there is a lot more reading involved than in just picking up a copy of A Sand County Almanac. It is beyond time for us to uphold a more robust land ethic. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 36
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 5,831
- Popularity
- #4,226
- Rating
- 4.2
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- 80
- ISBNs
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