Conservation is Good....But Why, Aldo??

Aldo Leopold articulates his concept of land ethic: that it is evolutionarily necessary that the society of man develops responsibility towards the land as an extension of community. Leopold thinks that our concept of philosophical ethics grew from our ecological ethic, that is that we place limits on our behavior for our survival. Because we depend so intimately on land for our survival, we must value it.

While Leopold makes some good points, like the fact that we cannot know the full ecological impacts of our actions because the natural world is so complex. However, I have issues with two things in his piece. First, he doesn't clarify how our ethic should translate into action. He says "...ethic of course cannot prevent the alteration, management, and use of... ‘resources’ but it does affirm their right to continued existence” (p164). He merely asks us to recognize that we are a member of a community and not that community's conqueror. The extent of his explanation is that aspects of nature should be valued beyond their use for economic self-interest, and that private landowners should exercise conservation.

Second, he fails to really articulate why exactly we should care. Yes, it’s true that we depend on land for our survival, but we’ve been abusing it for centuries and seem to be (even if only barely) doing okay. He doesn’t argue that land has inherent value, or that as a creation of God it deserves respect. In fact, the closest argument he makes for conservation is that some aspects of land that are without economic value are important because they are interconnected with those aspects that do have economic value. All throughout the piece, he argues that we must look beyond economic value, but then reduces conservation to economic terms. In this way, he contradicts himself.