Matt:
    One of the most important parts of the book is the last thrid- this is where he really outlines his work and shows what it is.  The whole question of Leopold is how we go about writing on the land- how we make our presence known on the land.  One of the things we (the faculty) were talking about in seminar is how American Leopold is.  He is progressive- he comes out of the progressive mindset of America.  He thinks it is possible for people to put together a community where they live well and be good by reforming the system we live within.  In his view, I (Matt) don’t think he thinks we need a revolution- we can have a change of heart.  What he is calling for is for us to change our ways with land- to grow up, be more mature.  He is middle class, progressive.  He goes to Yale and spends all his life working as a middle level buereaucrat as a progressive professor at University of Wisconsin, which at the time was quite progressive.  People at this time were really trying to figure out how to live equitably with the landscape (the grange and progressive movement).  Nature is a big deal for Leopold- it is a defining element.  Nature defines human experience and human experience defines nature.  Early American experience and economy is clearly based on physical exploitation of the resources of America- timber, game, mining, farming, etc.  For Leopold nature has both an aesthetic and moral value.  There is something different about Leopold from the other people writing about nature at this time.  For the most part, the early naturalists (Thoureau, Muir, Emerson, etc.) saw the moral value of nature- it was a representation of God’s power and his greatness.  Leopold, however, although he is somewhat religious, looks to the ideas of evolution and to a concept of help as really the central points that are the structure for him to come to a moral understanding of the world.  Leopold is a scientist, naturalist, and manager first.  That is one of the reasons he has been so powerful and influential.  The ideas he evokes are really mainstream in some ways.  Also, like most naturalists, he is incredibly influential now, much more that he was in his day.  People are asking these questions that they weren’t at his time.
    Leopold born in Iowa- father was a furniture maker.  He went to Yale in 1905- the forestry school at Yale was began in 1900.  Forestry at this time was about being engaged with landscape.  It was seen as being available to organize and manage- our job was to do that without being wasteful and exploitative.  It was about making use of the resources but not being wasteful and stupid in the process.  He worked in the forestry department for a few years until he came down with kidney disease.  After this he never had as much energy as before and worked in more management areas.  He became a chair of game management at U. of Wisconsin which was quite unique because he was creating his own subdivision of science with his studies.  In the mid 1930’s, some really important things happen to him.  The first was a trip to Germany- he went there to study forest management (Germany has been the founder of forest management).  Leopold found there that it was too artificial- there was much less wildlife and it was too limited for him.  He also goes down to the southwest.  He realizes how destroyed and modified the land he was previously was.  He got to see what a fully functioning ecosystem was in the southwest.  Finally, he bought this farm that Sand County Almanac is all about.  As a forester, he decided that he would go out there and do some restoration ecology.  His pine trees suffered about 90% mortality- while he was able to make some minor improvements, what he came to realize was that knowing what was needed and doing what was needed were totally different things.
    The land ethic movement was the idea of fostering a community within the land, plants, animals, and human beings.    It must also include love and respect for the land- it is not solely based on economic value (although it does include it).  Leopold believes in the idea of moral community, not individual autonomy.  It could be considered weird to think about a moral communtiy- that we all have to take into account each other (and that includes other species- every member of other species).  It becomes much more difficult because every thing is so connected.  One of the things that a lot of folks who want to use the land ethic have tried to get us to think about is to try to get us to think about the relationships between one species to another.  It entails a much larger notion of respect and understanding.  For example, the notion that we can treat things with respect and yet kill some of them to eat.  We can cut down some land to use for firewood and still respect it.  What’s interesting about Leopold is that his notion is very communitarian.  Much of his argument comes out of Darwin’s speculation of human engagement with each other.  What Leopold is suggesting is that human beings have evolved in a social way that they can feel empathy for each other and can feel empathy and sympathy for other species.  For example, when the passenger pigeon becomes extinct, he says, it is the first time one species feels sadness for the disappearance of another.  It is a moral success, even if their deaths was a moral failure.  One of the reasons why this land ethic had been unpopular with philosophers was because it got rid of a lot of the questions about individual decision.  It was popular with land managers and the forestry movement because that is the very question of land management- how do we get it all to work together well.