Stewardship and Aldo Leopold

Webster's dictionary defines stewardship as "the individual's responsibility to manage his life and property with proper regard to the right's of others."

Who are the others we would be concerned about if we wish to practice good stewardship?  Our family, neighbors, community, region, state, nation, world?  All of the above, and more.

Aldo Leopold, in his seminal work "A Sand County Almanac,"  writes of the need for a new land ethic, in which common citizens see the land as a community of plants and animals, within which the human community lives.  By seeing ourselves as connected to all other living things, our relationship with the land  changes,  and that is different from that of most of our ancestors.

"In short," he writes, "the land ethic changes the role Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.  It implies respect for his fellow-members [animals and plants], and also respect for the community as such."

When land is treated as a community as opposed to a commodity, it becomes unthinkable to allow extinctions of plants and animals that we have a responsibility to treat with "proper regard."

Aldo Leopold learned while working for the US Forest Service that the government itself cannot be expected to do all that is necessary for good land stewardship.  In fact, he was able to see during his travels all over the country that private citizens often did a far better job at land stewardship than the government.  By providing incentives and assistance, however, the government can and does enhance the degree of stewardship being practiced thoughout our nation.

Leopold would likely have been astounded at how the extension of his ideas has manifested itself in the modern world, with millions of acres of land under private ownership having land use agreements (conservation easements) that will assure "proper regard" for the future protection of the plants and animals in the land community he wrote about two generations ago.

Yet he might also be disappointed at how many still regard the land as a commodity and wilderness as a place to be tamed and put to human use.  We have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.

DBB