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The unequivocal connection between Human and Land

Taylor Moulton
BIOL 1120
2/21/18
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Land and Human. The correlation between the two are very important! From the

beginning of time to the current relationship we share. We rely on each other, through

the food grown from the land or from the variety of food chains, we (humans) would not

have the proper need to live. As well as the land relies on our impact and their

accumulation of nutrients from us. And without our careful and thoughtful impact on the

land, the land could not survive. While reading an essay from “A Sand County Almanac”

specifically The Land Ethic, Leopold discusses many ethical issues and connections

between our land. I will discuss two essential points that Leopold made in his essay.

First, the concept of the community of our land and second, substitutes for land ethics.

Our concept of the community is very important. Our ethics arise from individuals

from that perspective community. The community of land encompasses soil, water,

plants and animals which makes up our land. As many don’t know, our role as humans

we should be members, not conquerors but to both hold and maintain a symbiotic

relationship. The makeup of this role is complex and has its own system, if we stray

away or destroy this system, we risk losing the land and eventually we could lose

ourselves as humans.

The current situation of our land is not the best, we do not have a land ethic

currently but steadily making progress. Today we have current issues that are slowly

taking certain creatures and plants away for profit. According to The land Ethic, certain

creatures and plants provide a purpose. Some would say certain trees are deemed

useless because their profit is dwindling on that specific tree or considered a weak tree

commercially. While in Europe they are studying and understanding the need for beech

(as some would say is useless to many foresting companies),that purpose is to promote
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soil fertility. Most people find that they can make a profit from the land though

deforestation instead of looking past the economic value and seeing the growth and

diversity of its true purpose in nature. The land ethic idea should be instituted and

maintained by the obligation of the private ownership versus the government. The

government’s control can help the conservation efforts, but it can also hurt it though

mass elimination from trees and other products from the land to create industrialization.

The best alternative is private ownership, because most individuals live off the land and

its resource. This can be less damaging to our land than through governmental control.

Education is a key part to conservation and preservation, we need more institutional

influences on our community that promotes these values. In the society of profit driven

and self-interest, it’s difficult to preserve the land. Through small actions like education,

private ownership, and realizing that we need to coexist as a community with the land.

Then we can achieve the possibility of a beautiful and progressive future for all of us.

My conservation philosophy varies to some similarities as The Land Ethic. My

philosophy is we should occupy and use what we can to conserve energy and limit

pollution. Such as reusing things on a small scale, like water bottles. Reusable water

bottles help eliminate a constant waste of paper cups or plastic bottles. Currently at my

job, I bring a reusable water bottle to help cut back, as I start to notice around me most

people will use a paper cup or even two daily. Reusable products can bring wonders to

our environment and cut back on human waste and halt the spread of pollution and

exhausting our resources. I feel that my belief on this subject, contours from many

different sources such as school, lifestyle and mutual respect. Mainly my parents raised

me to treat the world as it treats me. Mutual respect goes in many directions not just
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towards other human beings. If we think of how much we can impact the world by doing

little efforts such as reusable products or mutual respect, we can lead a drastic change.

As a society, we feed too much into the land, we should give back to the land.

We need to make a change that will continue this land for generations to come. My

contributions are to practice recycling and showing my family/others the benefits and

watch them reap. Slowly transitioning into sorting my recyclables, would lead to daily

efforts instituting a change and creating a positive habit thus reducing mass increments

of trash from my household. I will also strive to start a garden. This would bring me

closer to the land by feeding it nutrients and adding a variation of plants. In return of

giving this would provide me vegetables, fruit or other foods as a result of our symbiotic

relationship.

In our society; today I feel we are making bigger changes such as recycling or

creating gardens. The past society focused on industrialization and creating a

mechanical society, before this time we lived off the land and it in returned the land lived

off us. Industrialization took its toll and taught to us to expand and grow. This idea

overused the land and damaged it for a personal and faster gain such as better

technology etc. As we advance with technology and industrialization slowly halted we

are now able to find better conservational and ecofriendly ideas that can repair and

strengthen our land. destroying trees and creating deforestation is still an issue but,

many programs and governmental assistance is trying to revert it or at least create a

replenishment for those privileged decisions that we made in our past. I feel we are still

greedy and economically driven with the land, but at least trying to cut back and create

alternatives that will replace our destruction.


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In ways of creating a less destroyed land, we sometimes forget that we (humans)

are not the only ones obligated to the land. Many animals are symbiont to the land. I

would like to reflect more on conservation in my life, by creating a more well understood

awareness in my community. A possible idea is we limit the continuous construction of

more residential and commercial building and provide park and recreational habitats

that promote the environment and the surrounding beauty it provides. The benefits are

outstanding we would start to see more wildlife, animals, and products of nature that we

drive away.

Our (science community) efforts are to continual create and improve

conservational technique, like parks or areas we open ourselves to the biotic community

making that a priority over our own. As we protect the integrity of our biotic community

we put ourselves aside but reaping the rewards it offers. I would agree with Leopold’s

statement of “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty

of the biotic community? It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Doing this we put

ourselves aside as some would believe is not true. Back when I was a child, a lesson

installed by my parents and the community was the Golden Rule! This rule states we

should treat others, the way you would want to be treated. This concept could be

applied to the land we live on. Some may believe that putting the community concerns

over ours is wrong. What they don’t understand is that we don’t just put the lands needs

above ours we create a give and take relationship therefore catering to both needs and

creating a symbiotic relationship. Sunyata is the teaching of “emptiness” proposed by

the Buddhist monk Nagarjuna, his concept teaches that we are selfless and in return will
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receive what is needed. This concept from religion can help us grow to care for

everything around us.

As we create Sunyata we can make a new-found love for the land. We start to

see the beauty, the respect, and love for it as we would for anything else we cherish.

To me the duty to the land will motivate me more to seeing the beauty but also creating

motivation of creating a duty, holding that pride of passion for the environment is more

rewarding than caring for the cosmetic beauty of vanity. Duty and honor plays a huge

role in my life, I dedicate my life to something I make sure I make that a priority. As

Leopold has to the efforts towards conservation.

As a priority, I want to make my own “land ethic” a top one. Doing this I am

benefiting from the non-human elements/ land and myself. I could not live if I didn’t have

food and the land couldn’t exist or thrive if we (living creatures) didn’t help maintain its

continual existence. We live in a reality that we need the land and the land needs us

and it’s our duty to fulfil that obligation among our lifetime to continue the lifetime of

others.

The Land Ethic overall was an interesting and inspiring read. It opened the mind,

(specifically mine) to the reality of how our land is treated and how it should be treated.

This article provided evidence and an evaluating argument over the ethical reasoning of

our past, current, and future of conservation. The correlation between this short book

and this class was very necessary to evolving our education and expanding it, I felt that

it was a good exercise. I really don’t enjoy subject driven reading for classes but this

one really showed the reality of our environment. My opinion of conservation didn’t
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change much except, expanding the passion for this subject. Throughout the book,

there were sections that I really enjoyed such as:

“By and large, our present problem is on of attitudes and implements.”

(Leopold,225-226)

“Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.” (Leopold,207)

“We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand,

love, or otherwise have faith in.” (Leopold,214).

Many of these quotes from The Land Ethic were inspiring and relative to my life.

One of our big problems on conservation is the attitude and action towards it. Without

that we can’t move forward and create a better land! Land and human should coexist

feeding off each other, as a biotic community should. Thus, creating harmony. Overall,

we can only have ethics in passionate subjects that we care for deeply, so we should

make it our passion and love for the land to create ethics for our future strive towards a

better of conservation.

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