The Land Ethic In Aldo Leupold's A Sand County Almanac

In Aldo Leupold's, A Sand County Almanac, he discusses the topic referred to as Land Ethic. According to Leupold, the land ethic can be defined as a moral principle, in which, humans must learn to coexist, not only with their homo sapien community, but with all organisms that reside in their ecosystem. To have a land ethic, humans must consciously coexist with the soil, water, plants, and animals, collectively. A land ethic acknowledges that in some areas the habitat must remain in its natural state, untouched by man. We as humans must change our ways in order to preserve, conserve, and protect the fellow members of our society, or we will continue to demolish and exterminate species.
A land ethic that is governed solely by economic self-interest is not practical in conserving the natural state of the land. This form of conservation is not efficient for the protection of particular elements that make up the ecosystem, due to their lack of commercial value. Each layer that makes up the ecosystem relies on those both above it and below it for various services, like

food. The functioning of the land is dependent on the cooperation and competition of its diverse community. Therefore, we must not only make conscious changes for commercial values, but also philosophical values.
Although the land is capable of recovery, it can only recover to a certain point. The point to which the land can recover decreases in complexity, with each alteration we make. These restrictions and limits we place on our land affect the future of our system. I agree with Leupold, that we as members of a larger society, need to learn to stop modifying the land to ourselves and learn to coexist with the land untouched by man. Previously, I thought that I had been coexisting with the natural land, but in fact, I have done nothing to coexist with the natural landscape. It sounds like a simple task to coexist with nature, but we are constantly modifying the land to meet our personal needs, despite the needs of the habitat for other organismal use.
The land is a precious resource that man has interrupted and continued to attempt to conquer. In order to continue with our lives, we need stop trying to overpower and outcompete the land, and learn to coexist with the land. Our continued destruction of the natural rain forests, the introduction of pesticides, and gas emissions are examples of major human interactions that only benefit us and don't take our fellow community members into consideration. Humans want to conquer everything, but if we don't learn to coexist with our community, we will eventually demolish resources, and run more environmentally significant species to extinction.
I believe that the people of the United States think they have developed a strong land ethic and do everything necessary to preserve and protect the land.

However, upon closer examination and the understanding of what a land ethic is according to Aldo Leupold, I believe that the citizens of the United States would be shocked to see the reality of their failure to coexist with the land in its natural state. Like myself, many citizens believe that our country is doing everything necessary to preserve nature. Unfortunately, we are failing to preserve the natural landscape, and I believe that even with the further growth of a land ethic, that we will continue to try and outcompete our fellow members in our community for our own personal needs. I believe that we will always have the principles of a land ethic in our mind, but they will continue to be placed on the backburner to our personal goals and

egos.
Although further growth of a land ethic is needed, I believe that we will continue to put ourselves in front of our fellow community members. Issues such as the implementation of a land ethic need to be discussed in a way that takes all perspectives and opinions within the community into consideration (even those of the organisms that cannot speak on their behalf). Also, we must take more precautionary measures to identify whether or not our modification being made to the land are necessary. The relationship between man and the land needs to be pushed beyond an economic privilege and become a prioritized obligation. Land use needs to be protected beyond economic self-interest. We need to learn how to apply the land ethic in all cases and to do so, we must view the evolution of a land ethic as not only an intellectual one, but an emotional one. It is essential for man to see nature first-hand to understand the beauty and importance of maintaining its natural state.