Wild Connections and many other groups are exploring Aldo Leopold's legacy. His influence on wilderness, restoration, wildlfe management and the land ethic was far-reaching. He died in 1948, and A Sand County Almanac was completed by his son.
Leopold’s thinking about the land, by which he meant the whole biota, changed greatly over his lifetime. A concise summary of this evolution is found in The River of the Mother of God and Other Easays by Aldo Leopold edited by Flader and Callicott. In the Introduction they note three common themes of The Sand County Almanac as conservation ecology, natural esthetics and environmental ethics. They also list professional and public policy themes of wildlife management, conservation economics, sustainable agriculture and wilderness. The essays are then presented chronologically, and keeping in mind that his thinking would change quite radically helps one get through the 1915 The Varmint Question (kill all predators so there will be more “wildlife” like deer) or Piute Forestry vs. Forest Fire Prevention (suppress all fires so there will be more trees).
In 1935 Leopold bought a farm along the Wisconsin River. In the Green Fire film, his daughter relates that everyone thought there would be a vine-covered cabin, but in fact there was only a chicken coop filled with manure and corn stubble and cockle-burrs as far as you could see. Photos show what years of planting pines and doing restoration can accomplish. Today the farm is a learning center managed by the Aldo Leopold Foundation.
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