A Practical Land Ethic

Personally I do not feel that Leopold makes a strong claim towards the fact that the land and creatures that dwell upon have intrinsic value, however I also felt that he made a very strong case as to why the Land Ethic should be adopted. I greatly appreciated the unique way in which Leopold approaches the subject because it addresses aspects of human nature while avoiding being bogged down in an overly philosophical foundation. I am not convinced that humanity will actually evolve this land ethic for many of the reasons he states such as separation from nature, however Leopold’s claim that humanity is valuing nature primarily in economic terms which the planet cannot sustain seems to becoming increasingly evident.
Leopold believes that people need to have certain feeling of love and respect of the land in order for there to be a land ethic, but he states no reason as to why human’s should develop such feelings however personally I believe it to be a part of human nature to have such feelings towards the earth though of course I cannot prove that that is not merely my subjective experience. In my opinion Leopold is not putting forth a philosophical reason to respect nature, rather he is using his observations of the world to show that current human actions are unsustainable and bad for the planet, and giving an arguably practical way of avoiding an environmental crisis. I think the fact that he is trying to find practical solutions is made obvious by the fact that he is using governmental solutions as stopgaps before this new land ethic evolves within humanity. While I personally believe Leopold's ethic to be "practical" in the fact that it seems a logical solution and avoids some philosophical arguments, I am not trying to indicate that it would be easy to implement without Leopold's attitude of respect for the land "evolving" in the human race.