Aldo Leopold The Land Ethic Analysis

Whose responsibility is it to conserve the land and nature around us? Are we as a people able to look at things in nature for more than just their economic value? Is education about the need for land conservation enough or are there other steps required? Is the land able to adjust and keep up with the rate of human destruction? These are all questions posed by Aldo Leopold in “The Land Ethic”.
Leopold states that all ethics rest upon the idea that a person is a member of a community in which all have their own part to play; in land ethics he includes soil, plants, water, and animals into this community. Leopold believes that humans are a member of this community and not the conquerors of it. That land ethics is an ecological conscience. He believes that it is up to humans to protect and conserve this community not destroy it for our own gain. Leopold believes that land serves a purpose and that often we are exploiting it for our own personal gain with little regard of the effects it has on the environment.
In “The Land Ethic”, Leopold explains how education about conservation is not enough. That more needs to be done than just making people aware of the effects of their actions. Even when presented with the tools to improve the way in which farming and animal raising people only did the things that were most beneficial to them
He explains how everything starts with the soil and how from it life is formed. The soil grows the plants, then animals eat the plants and so on, he explains that by destroying different types of land we are causing a chain reaction that can lead to the extinction of certain types of animals. Leopold also explains that though things change over time due to evolution, the rate at which we are destroying the land may be too much for the land to adjust to. Leopold believes that land ethic is only way we as humans will be able to save the environment from