Sand County and Leopold's Conservation Ethic

First of all, I am a huge fan of A Sand County Almanac - as a student of ecology, I consider this book to be essential reading for anyone in the biological sciences. More than anything, to me what this series of essays highlights is the power of observation - it is a clear demonstration of the insight that can be gained from simply opening one's eyes and taking in their natural environment. It has recently become a trend in the natural sciences to hire biologists that are question driven; they ask broad ecological or evolutionary questions and then choose a natural system appropriate for answering these questions. Unfortunately, this translates to a dwindling number of true natural historians - experts like Leopold who have vast experience in particular habitats or systems and use observation to motivate their questions. It seems as if the result of this shift is a lot of biological theory manufactured on laptop computers by scientists whose lack of field expertise is as apparent as a shit stain on a pair of fresh underpants. In this vein, I consider Sand County to be a throwback to an older, more organism-based, way of doing science. And I like it.

One of the more interesting themes brought up in this book is Leopold's conservation ethic - as John stated, there are reasons beyond money or public health why we feel the need to restore or preserve our natural environment. It is curious to me where this ethic originates - is it simply because some of us want to do the "right thing" (whatever that is), or is it basally some innate selfish understanding that after a certain point, we will screw up the environment so badly it will cease to support humanity? With the popularity of this new Go Green trend, it seems there has emerged a new, social, motivation for environmentalism that for some has no apparent connection, at least on the surface, to the arguments presented in Sand County.

Of all the essays in this book, I find the bit Axe in Hand to be perhaps the most meaningful piece , as far as a commentary on the practicalities of conservation/restoration ecology. Particularly, Leopold mentions his "own axe-in-hand decisions", or a-priori biases that influence his specific land-use choices. Its funny to me that Leopold recognized in the 1930's what goes virtually unstated in conservation biology today - that the strategic goals of restoration are absolutely based on human "axe-in-hand" priorities that may often have no relevance to natural ecosystem dynamics

The goals of any conservation strategy include often dogmatic ideals that are considered generally "good", or worth conserving: diversity, native species, or species that provide "ecosystem services". Really, this is a list of things that humans like in a habitat - lots of diverse, interesting species that make ecosystems productive, not a list of community attributes that promote stability. In reality, many communities are not like this - some are simply unproductive, highly disturbed, or dominated by a single keystone species (and probably should be maintained like this). In this way, Leopold's discussion of axe-in-hand decisions to me really say something about conservation biology in the present.