A Sand County Alamac Summary

A Sand County Alamac is one of Aldo Leopold’s most famous books, Leopold discusses his many thoughts, ideas and feelings about the environment and man's interaction with it. He describes his surrounds with amazing imagination, allowing the reader to connect with his thoughts on nature. One thought that Leopold described, which holds true to this day, is the concept of a Land Ethic and why such an ethic is needed. Leopold also discusses various barriers that stand in the way of implementing such an ethic. Not only does he emphasize the beauty in the natural world he highlights the consequences of an industrialized society. His ability to humanize nature allows the reader to connect with and care for nature, to become emotionally engaged. Naturally, there will be a need for us to use the land to our benefit. However, in using the lands limited resources, we need to consider and manage the ways in which we harvest what we need as to limit our impact to the natural community in which we live. By having a Land Ethic, people will understand and do what is ethically correct when interacting with his surroundings. “I have purposely presented the land ethic as a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written’… It evolves in the minds of a thinking community.” (Leopold 225)
One such barrier is we lack a daily engagement with nature leading to a lack of appreciation, there is also a lack of education and how ecosystems work and how people fit into the natural system. Leopold understands that the governments lack of conservation plays a role in how landowners do not take personal responsibility for their land. A landowner will only use a conservation method which is profitable while ignoring others, this approach doesn’t accomplish conservation programs it makes them