[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 150 (Friday, October 29, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13574-S13575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC

 Mr. FEINGOLD. I rise to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of 
the publication of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. The 
publication of this work has been celebrated in my home state 
throughout 1999, most recently with a major national conference on the 
future of the land ethic at the beginning of this month. However, 
October 27, 1949 is the date that Oxford Press released the first 
edition of the book.
  Aldo Leopold is considered to be the father of wildlife ecology. He 
was a renowned scientist and scholar, exceptional teacher, philosopher, 
and gifted writer. It is for this book, A Sand County Almanac, that 
Leopold is best known by millions of people around the globe. The book 
has been acclaimed as the century's literary landmark in conservation. 
It led to a philosophy that has guided many to discovering what it 
means to live in harmony with the land.
  When Leopold died in 1948, he had yet to see his Sand County Almanac 
in print, and it was through the efforts of his son Luna that the first 
version of A Sand County Almanac was made available to the public.
  Aldo Leopold's authority as a philosopher of conservation came from a 
lifelong love of wilderness and the recognition of his need to be 
surrounded by ``things natural, wild, and free.'' Upon graduation from 
Yale University, Leopold went to work for the United States Forest 
Service in 1909, helped to found the Wilderness Society, and in 1924 
was responsible for the institution, through administrative action, of 
the first of the United States' Wilderness Areas, the Gila National 
Forest in New Mexico. From 1933 until his death, Leopold held a chair 
in game management at the University of Wisconsin.
  Although Leopold's love of the land is apparent in the book, his book 
does not cry out in defense of particular tracts of land about to go 
under the axe or plow. Rather Leopold deals with the minutiae of often 
unnoticed plants and animals, all the little things that one might 
overlook in the task of managing lands but which must be present to add 
up to healthy ecosystems.
  Part I of A Sand County Almanac is devoted to the details of a single 
piece of land: Leopold's 120-acre property in central Wisconsin, 
abandoned as a working farm years before because of the prevalence of 
sandy soil from which the ``Sand Counties'' took their nickname. It was 
at this weekend retreat, Leopold says, ``that we try to rebuild, with 
shovel and axe, what we are losing elsewhere.''
  Month by month, Leopold leads the reader through the progression of 
the seasons with descriptions of such things as skunk tracks, the 
songs, habits, and attitudes of dozens of bird species, cycles of high 
water in the river, the timely appearance and blooming of several 
plants, and the joys of cutting one's own firewood. Part of Leopold's 
request, toward the end of the book, that we attach values to the 
things in nature that have no apparent economic worth. At the time 
Leopold's Wisconsin sand farm itself was economically valueless because 
of its unsuitability for crops, timber or pasture. However, from 
Leopold's essays one comes to realize that here is a parcel of land 
that is anything but worthless; the property that yields to its owner 
the multitude of joys and insights that Leopold describes is a rich 
piece of ground indeed.
  In Part II of A Sand County Almanac, titled ``The Quality of 
Landscape,'' Leopold takes his reader away from the farm; first into 
the surrounding Wisconsin countryside and then even farther. Leopold 
describes an Illinois bus ride, a visit to the Iowa of his boyhood, on 
to Arizona and New Mexico where he first worked with the U.S. Forest 
Service, across the southern border into Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico, 
north to Oregon and Utah, and finally travel across the northern border 
into Manitoba, Canada.
  In each of these places, Leopold outlines the natural history of the 
region. Leopold understood the difficulty of the choices before us, and 
certainly knew the paradox with which we are faced: ``But all 
conservation of wildness is self-defeating,'' he writes, ``for to 
cherish we must see and fondle, and when we have seen and fondled, 
there is no wilderness left to cherish.''
  In the final pages of A Sand County Almanac, Leopold introduces the 
concept of a ``land ethic'' and a plea that such an ethic be adopted. 
Leopold defines philosophical ethics as ``the differentiation of social 
from anti-social conduct'' for the common good of the community, and 
declares that a land ethic, wherein the ecologies in which we erect our 
developments would be considered an integral part of the community, 
amounts to the same thing as social ethics. A land ethic, in the 
author's terms, means a ``willing limitation on freedom of action in 
the struggle for survival.''
  A Sand County Almanac was not written specifically for wilderness 
activists. It was written for everyone, regardless of vocation. I 
recommend this book to colleagues not only because it is enjoyable, but 
also because it raises important questions that the Senate will 
eventually be forced to address. As members of the Senate, the 
decisions we will make regarding land use are critically important. The 
responsibility is there, as well as the rewards, for those who seek to 
conduct themselves in a fashion consistent with Leopold's vision.
  A Sand County Almanac continues to inspire new generations of 
Americans to take up the cause of conservation. And 50 years later, the 
land ethic continues to serve as the guiding beacon for American 
conservation policy. We do well in the Senate to mark this Anniversary, 
and to dedicate ourselves to Leopold's legacy.

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