The Land Ethic

The concept of a land ethic, as introduced in Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949), continues to be a core foundation of the conservation movement. The intense, yet simple elegance of the essay, “The Land Ethic,” has survived a changing world.

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The purpose of Leopold’s essay is encapsulated in the line:

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise”

Given the modern escalation of global energy demand, urbanization, biodiversity loss, and climate change, Leopold’s essay is more than a romantic relic.

Seventy years after Leopold’s manifesto, planners and decision-makers are no longer simply tasked with preserving wilderness. Together, we are tasked with creating sustainable spaces in landscapes that are already shaped by human presence.

The notion of a land ethic is an enduring argument for humanity’s moral responsibility to the natural world. In “The Land Ethic,” Leopold explains that there are established ethics between individuals, between people and their communities, and between citizens and institutions. Yet, there is no established set of moral principles between humans and the natural world.

“An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct. The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land”

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According to Leopold, the interactions between humans and ecosystems must be preserved for the sustainability of human and non-human communities. Every member of the ecosystem is integral and must be protected.

Like natural ecosystems, human communities naturally work together to uphold a social and economic order. Ethical systems on the community level can be enforced without external interference, even when community members are acting in self-interest. Likewise, the synergistic interactions between human and natural ecosystems support vital sustainability for both communities.

Human communities benefit immensely from the complex function of natural ecosystems. In an increasingly urban world, these natural systems must be supported in the built environment. Modern research supports the urgency of such conservation efforts.

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Urban green spaces provide countless services that support human physical, mental, and social health. Kondo et al. (2018) found urban green spaces to be negatively associated with mortality, heart rate, and violence; and positively correlated with attention, mood, and physical activity. Remarkably, a 2016 study found that US women living in areas with dense greenery had 12% lower death rates than women in less green spaces.

In addition to improving health outcomes, green spaces help mitigate climate change and its impacts through many of the same pathways, such as through heat reduction and flood mitigation. Thus, integrating nature with human-dominated landscapes is vital for human health and sustainability.