If you have not yet read A Sand County Alamanac by Aldo Leopold, do yourself a favor this summer: put away the beach novels and move this classic to the top of your reading list. This collection of deceptive simple essays is rightly held to be one of the seminal books of the 20th century, for in them Leopold distilled an idea that, in the year of its publication, 1949 (and the book has never been out-of-print since), was far ahead of its time: the idea of the land ethic. It is the idea that we humans must aspire to come into an ethical relationship to the land and the community of life of which our species is, indisputably, a dependent member.
Whether you read this extraordinary book for the first time, or are a longtime devotee, you will know you are in the hands of a very great, deeply insightful intellect. Yet even many who know this book, do not know that Leopold was also the founding father of America's national wilderness preservation system. Much earlier in his life, as a Forest Service officer in New Mexico, his work led to the establishment of the world's first wilderness area-the Gila Wilderness, established in 1924.
In a series of articles in both specialized and popular periodicals in the 1920s, Leopold laid out the first practical ideas for how America could preserve samples of its wilderness heritage. His advocacy was driven by his recognition that the wilderness landscapes that had been so formative to our national experience and our national character were being lost with astonishing rapidity, fragmented and ground to dust in the enthusiasm to build roads up every last valley and across every last plateau. In Sunset he warned -
"Do not forget that the good roads mania, and all forms of unthinking Boosterism that go with it, constitute a steam roller the likes of which has seldom been seen in the history of mankind. ... It might very readily flatten out, one by one, the remaining opportunities for [preserving wilderness]."
And that was more than 80 years ago!
Leopold's concern was that if the rapidly vanishing remnants of wilderness were lost, then its influence in our national story and culture would soon fade, relegated to history books.
"The idea of preserving wilderness areas, he wrote, "is premised on the assumption that the rocks and rills and templed hills of this America are something more than economic material." Wilderness, he said, "is the very stuff America is made of." In another 1925 article, he urged that wilderness be seen as a natural resource in its own right, not solely as a collection of raw materials to be developed but rather as "a distinctive environment which may, if rightly used, yield certain social values." Saving wilderness should be, he urged, a part of a balanced pattern of land uses. drones, all of which are the distinctive characteristics of successful pioneers."
In 1935, Leopold was one of the eight founders of The Wilderness Society. He was there when, at a meeting of its leaders in 1947, the organization resolved on the need for a federal law to preserve wilderness areas and set in motion the campaign that led, 17 years later, to enactment of the Wilderness Act. And that Act embraced key Leopold ideas:
First, that we would have a national system of wilderness areas, embracing the wild portions of many categories of federal land, such as national forests, parks, and wildlife refuges.
Second, that in a practical world where almost every acre of our landscape had already felt the impact of man's activities in one form or another, the criteria for wilderness protection would have to be broad, rather than limited to some purist theory that only vast areas never touched by man qualified. As he wrote [in an essay about wilderness in A Sand County Alamanac] -
"many of the diverse wildernesses out of which we have hammered America are already gone; hence in any practical program the unit areas to be preserved must vary greatly in size and in degree of wildness."
Third, Leopold understood that in protecting wilderness areas we would have to accommodate certain nonconforming uses that may have already become established on these federal lands. In yet another 1925 article, he observed that -
"the wilderness idea was born after, rather than before, the normal course of commercial development had begun. The existence of these complications is nobody's fault. But it will be everybody's fault if they do not serve as a warning against delaying immediate inauguration of a comprehensive system of wilderness areas."
Today, thanks to Leopold and the 1964 Wilderness Act-and to the tireless work of ordinary people like you and me advocating for these wild places-America has protected nearly 5 percent of all the land (in all ownerships) in our country: 107,400,000 acres. And because of the vitality of Leopold's ideas, this work continues, and Congress works to protect additional federal lands as wilderness.
You'll take away a flavor of Leopold's prose, and the stimulus of his ideas, with this final sample [again, from A Sand County Alamanac] -
"Permanent grizzly ranges and permanent wilderness areas are of course two names of one problem. Enthusiasm about either requires a long view of conservation, and a historical perspective. Only those able to see the pageant of evolution can be expected to value its theatre, the wilderness, or its outstanding achievement, the grizzly. But if education really educates, there will, in time, be more and more citizens who understand that relics of the old West add meaning and value to the new. Youth yet unborn will poll up the Missouri with Lewis and Clark, or climb the Sierras with James Capen Adams, and each generation in turn will ask: Where is the big white bear? It will be a sorry answer to say he went under while conservationists weren't looking."
As we celebrate the birth of our nation this month, it's fitting that we look back on a man who helped us understand - and treasure - the benefits Americans derive from our special wild places.
