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What is an ethical sequence?
This is the question Aldo Leopold posed in his essay
"A Land Ethic"
Aldo Leopold, was a 19th and 20th century, wildlife biologist, conservationist, and ecologist.
Property ownership, control and disposal as a matter of expediency is a basic American attitude about land.
1-2 the ethical structure of ancient Greece extended protection to wives but not human chattel -- hence slave women were disposed of by masters.
3 As ethical criteria are extended >, there is a corresponding shrinkage in the realms of expediency <
4 Extension of ethics = process of ecological evolution
Ethics are defined as: "a limitation on the freedom of action"
social from anti-social conduct
evolve modes of social cooperation
advanced symbioses (Politics and Economics)
5 complexity of coop mechanisms
6 relation between individuals & people in society
7 no ethic for land-use
8
9
10 Community members of a community of interdependent parts
ethics suggest cooperation among otherwise competing interests
11 simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include
soils plants and animals collectively the land
12 right to continued existence
13 from conqueror to plain member of ecological community
14 the conqueror role is eventually self-defeating
15 education hampers the knowing that we eat, drink & breathe land
16 bio-mechanism is so complex -- as to be beyond scientific comprehension
17 an ecological interpretation of history
18 bluegrass was once cane-breaks of central USA
19 soils are keystones to culture
20 southwest occupancy bread erosion and retreat of land
lead to a mutual deterioration of plants and soils!
21 Anasazi had no cattle to loot the land
22 plant succession steered the course of history!
Property | Conscience | Substitutes | Community | Cleavage | Outlook | Interpretation | Land
The Ecological Conscience
23 Conservation is a state of harmony between people and land
24 volume or content of knowing?
25 practice what conservation is profitable
26 no sacrifice -- no obligations only enlightened self-interest
27 topsoil slipping seaward -- Wisconsin
due to immediate visible economic gain!
28 selected those remedial practices -- profitable anyhow
29 we have more education and less soil ! [prophetic]
30 economic self-interest dominates our land values
31 institutions too timid & too anxious for quick success
extension of social conscience from people to land
32 loyalties, affections & commitments must be challenged and changed
by making conservation easy we make it trivial!
Substitutes for a land ethic
33 stones in lieu of an ethic (bread)
34 members with no economic value are under appreciated = depreciation
integrity means entitled to continued existence
(blue-green bacteria, methanogens, wetlands, bogs,)
35 evidence has to be economic to be important (believed/ heeded)
36 do birds have a biotic right to exist?
37 still at the 'talk stage'
38 economic forestry reduces diversity
39 marshes, bogs, dunes, deserts! Whole communities are depreciated
40 muskrat marshes
41 relegating unproductive tasks to government {CCPP game}
42 industrial attitudes
43 owner attitudes
44 economics self-interestedness is lopsided
45 remedy is the private owners love of the land
community
The land ethic enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils waters, plants and animals, or collectively: the land.
Land Pyramid is an actual energy flow from the sun to the plants to the organisms in a conduit of life.
Land pyramid reveals a sense of dynamism as a basis for the development of an ecological conscience for a moral compassion we develop for our fellow creatures.
The essays define conservation, a conservation aesthetic based on the time and place of ecologically essential events, and a behavioral guide on how to further an ecological ethic as the precondition for successful, effective and equitable conservation.
Defines and adopts an ecological view of history enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils waters, plants and animals, or collectively: the land. p. 239.
A/B Cleavage
Describes a new approach} to conservation in the A | B Cleavage p. 258.
In the use of natural features, resources, and places Aldo Leopold distinguishes a commodity or production view from the inherent biologically functional view that forms the basis of biological wealth.
Biotic wealth preservation account approaches:
a) autistic b) biophiliacs
Two different types of investment decisions
1) future value of a forest diminishes with high interest rates 2) common property, keystone elements in ecological mgmt.
1) future value of a forest diminishes with high interest rates
2) common property, keystone elements in ecological mgmt.
Weal
water symbolizes redemption rivers and streams - watershed
energy is eternal delight
sources of useful power atmosphere surrounding climate landscape vegetation, wildlife & fisheries
A dynamic feed-back loop upon itself in a self-renewing process of becoming alive.
health is the capacity of the land for self renewal. p. 258.
functional relations rely on limiting factors
partnership: two begin to function as one dynamic partnerships; eukaryotic cells may have originated this way!
symbiosis:
root fungus & forest health lichens & air pollution corals & water temperature
The outlook
love - respect and admiration & and a high regard for its value
1 educational and economic incentives are headed away from
true modern "separated from the land"
"Synthetic substitutes" golf-links 'scenic' area
2 attitude of the farmer adversarial or slave to nature
3 ecological comprehension
4 minority revolt against the modern trends
5 not solely an economic problem!
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community."
6 economic feasibility limits the tether
7 evolved in the minds of a thinking community; Moses 10 commandments
8 an intellectual as well as emotional process -- critical understanding
9 social approbation for right actions; social disapproval in six stages:
shame sin ridicule punishment banishment deprivation
shame
sin
ridicule
punishment
banishment
deprivation
10 problem of attitudes and implements
The many meanings of Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic
natural objects as indicators, circuit breakers, enunciators;
emerge as symbols -- tree branches, tributary streams, cycles
NATURE intrinsic value inherent behavior what is it worth?
a misplaced trust in science having ecological (cancer) answers member of a biotic team p. 241
plant succession -- history p. 243
extension of ethics p. 238 community concept p. 239 Land} emerges as a collective organism with needs
Weal & Laws of conservation, minimum, ecology. with capacities self renewal and keystone species
As a partner we can we become members of the biological community as equal citizens?
dynamic dancing: adaptive learning, negating functionality
intense consciousness of land (p.243, quoted from 251, 253
violence, rapidity and scope (p. 254)
of man-made changes!
wisdom of biotic navigation
The Round River, p. 189 history and ecology ... contrive to limit her density. (land due to water and energy)
That in the beauty of the natural world is the stability and permanence of existence; inalterable, inalienable, irretrievable, it is the world that created and maintains us!
if the land ethic is ever to be demonstrable
see feel understand love, respect and admiration
Have faith in the land organism : the mere thin edge of the Land Organism is seen merely as landscapes.
Because the natural world is beyond our vision of it. Rachel Carson, J.B.S. Haldane
If we are ever to save it, a land ethic a precondition for conserving!
Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.
The exhaustion of wilderness in the more habitable portions of the globe.
That man-made changes are of a different order (magnitude) than evolutionary changes, and have effects (population) more comprehensive than is intended or foreseen.
Last Updated on 3/1/2000.
By Joseph Siry
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