Excerpts
As he formulated his concept of a land ethic, Aldo Leopold's writing traces the evolution of his thinking.

Bibliography
Works by and about Aldo Leopold.

Websites
Links to the Aldo Leopold Foundation, the Leopold Education Prgram, and numerous other sites.

Land Ethic
Aldo Leopold's writing traces the evolution of his thinking, concerning public/private land conservation.

I conclude that the current doctrine of private-profit and public-subsidy is defective in these respects: It expects subsidies to do more-and the private owner to do less-for the community than they are capable of doing. We rationalize these defects as individualism, but they imply no real respect for the landowner as an individual. They merely condone the ecological ignorance which contrasts so strongly with his precocity in mechanical things. But the final proof that it is bogus individualism lies in the fact that it leads us straight into government ownership. An orator could decry it as radical paternalism, as abject dependence upon government tolerated by the landowners of a free country. I do not decry it, but I hate to see us lean on it as a solution.

The Farm Wildlife Program: A Self-Scrutiny
unpublished manuscript, University of Wisconsin Archives

 

Thus we see that the painless path [of incentives and subsidies] not only fails to lead us to conservation, but sometimes actually retards the growth of critical intelligence on the whereabouts of alternative routes.

Land-Use and Democracy, 1942
River of the Mother of God, p. 299-300

 

I do not challenge the purchase of public lands for conservation. For the first time in history we are buying on a scale commensurate with the size of the problem. I do challenge the growing assumption that bigger buying is a substitute for private conservation practice. Bigger buying, I fear, is serving as an escape-mechanism-it masks our failure to solve the harder problem. The geographic cards are stacked against its ultimate success. In the long run it is exactly as effective as buying half an umbrella.

Conservation Economics, 1934
River of the Mother of God, p. 196-97

Bibliography

Bibliography by & about Aldo Leopold

Anderson, Peter. 1995. Aldo Leopold, American Ecologist. Franklin Watts/Grolier, New York.

Brown, David E. and Carmony, Neil B., eds., 1990. Aldo Leopold's Southwest. (Twenty-six early writings). University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Originally published as Aldo Leopold's Wilderness by Stackpole Books.

Callicott, J. Baird, ed., 1987. Companion to A Sand County Almanac. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Callicott, J. Baird and Freyfogle, Eric T. , eds., 1999. Aldo Leopold: For the Health of the Land. (previously unpublished essays and other writings) Island Press/Shearwater Books, Washington DC.

Dunlap, Julie. 1993. Aldo Leopold-Living With the Land. Twenty-First Century Books/Henry Holt, New York.

Flader, Susan L. 1974. Thinking Like A Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude Toward Deer, Wolves and Forests. University of Missouri Press, Columbia.

Flader, Susan and Callicot, J. Baird, eds, 1991. The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Leopold, Aldo. 1933. Game Management. Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted in 1986 by University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Leopold, Aldo. 1949. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. Oxford University Press, New York.

Leopold, Luna B., ed., 1953. Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold. Oxford University Press, New York.

Lorbiecki, Marybeth. 1996. A Fierce Green Fire, an illustrated biography. Falcon Publishing Co., Helena, MT.

McCabe, Robert. 1987. Aldo Leopold, The Professor. Palmer Publications, Amherst, WI.

McCabe, Robert, ed. 1989. Aldo Leopold, Mentor. Department of Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Meine, Curt. 1988. Aldo Leopold, His Life and Work. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Meine, Curt and Knight, Richard L., eds. 1999. The Essential Aldo Leopold. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Ross, John and Beth. 1998. Prairie Time: The Leopold Reserve Revisited. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Tanner, Thomas, ed. 1987. Aldo Leopold, The Man and His Legacy. Soil Conservation Society of America, Ankeny, IA.

Vickery, J.D. 1986. Wilderness Visionaries.

Links to websites

The Aldo Leopold Nature Center, Monona WI
http://www.naturenet.com/alnc/aldo.html

The Aldo Leopold Foundation, Baraboo WI
http://www.aldoleopold.org/

Excerpts from the works of Aldo Leopold
http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/chrisj/leopold-quotes.html

Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Missoula MT
http://leopold.wilderness.net/

Aldo Leopold Leadership Program
http://www.leopold.orst.edu/

Leopold profile by The Wilderness Society
http://www.wilderness.org/profiles/leopold.htm

The Leopold Education Project
http://www.lep.org/