Aldo Leopold was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation. His ethics of nature and wildlife preservation had a profound impact on the environmental movement, with his ecocentric or holistic ethics regarding land. From the Aldo Leopold Foundation site
Photo Credit: Pacific Southwest Region 5 Forest Service. USDA
“Thinking like a mountain is a term coined by Aldo Leopold in his book A Sand County Almanac. In the section entitled “Sketches Here and There” Leopold discusses the thought process as a holistic view on where one stands in the entire ecosystem. To think like a mountain means to have a complete appreciation for the profound interconnectedness of the elements in the ecosystems. It is an ecological exercise using the intricate web of the natural environment rather than thinking as an isolated individual.” From the Wikipedia article about Aldo Leopold
A Sand County Almanac, was published shortly after Leopold’s death in 1949. It came to prominence at the first Earth Day in 1970. It includes another influential essay, The Land Ethic, which discusses our moral responsibility to the natural world.
- Following is a link to his essay Thinking like a Mountain on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Conservation Training Center site
- Buy A Sand County Almanac from the Aldo Leopold Foundation site.
Order of the Sacred Earth OC 