Aldo+Leopold+p.+2

To take a case in point in which lack of regard for the duties one has to anyone or anything else has happened in the past, Leopold reports that farmers of Wisconsin ignored their obligation to write "rules for land-use" as part of a Wisconsin law (40). In 1937, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a law called the Soil Conservation District Law that basically stated the public will provide "free technical service" and loan "specialized machinery" to the farmers of Wisconsin if they will write their own "rules for land-use" (Leopold 40). The law also stated that "Each county may write its own rules" (Leopold 40). Many of the counties accepted the offer, and the public held to their part of the deal for ten years (40). However, during those ten years, none of the counties that accepted the offer wrote even one rule (40). This case in point shows how not teaching people, especially farmers, that they have duties to the land leads to some people not recognizing nor taking responsibility for those duties.

In the fourth section of Leopold's essay, he explains that management of ecosystems by the government subjects them to solely economic use. The first reason he gives against economic use of the land is that a high percentage of "members of the biotic community" may not have any "value economically" (Leopold 41). In Leopold's view, the "stability" of an ecosystem would be destroyed if the economically unvaluable organisms were forced to become extinct (41). Thus economically unvaluable organisms are very likely to become extinct if economic exploitation of their environment persists.

Next, he gives a reason why government management and regulation of ecosystems is not practical. He observes that whole ecosystems may be unvaluable economically, such as "marshes, bogs, dunes" (Leopold 42). These ecosystems are assigned "park" status by the government (42). Therefore the government is supposed to conserve these ecosystems. These "parks" are ecosystemic areas dotted with private properties (42). As a result, the private property sections of the ecosystem become harmed ecologically, and the government becomes unable to conserve each division of the ecosystem not on private land (42).

Leopold believes that the responsibilities of conservation should be shared between private landowners and the government, instead of only the government being responsible for conservation. He states at the end of the fourth section that the conservation system "relegates to government many functions eventually too large, too complex, or too widely dispersed to be performed by government" (Leopold 42). The fifth section of his essay is where he describes how energy flows through the different entities of an ecosystem. This energy flow is labeled the "land pyramid" by Leopold (42). He states that evolution has lengthened the path of energy through the pyramid. After his description of the land pyramid, he asserts how anthropogenic actions affect the operation of the energy system. For instance, soil has a characteristic that enables it to "receive, store, and release energy" (Leopold 43). Agriculture, an anthropogenic system, may deplete the storage of energy in soil "by overdrafts on the soil" (Leopold 43).

Then, Leopold poses a question, "Can the land adjust itself to the new order?" (Leopold 44). The "new order" he is referring to is any change of the ecosystem's energy flow caused by anthropogenic actions. He reflects upon his question. He supposes that certain continents may be capable of adjusting to the "new order" (44). But, many continents are less capable of doing so (44). Specifically, he states that "parts of Mexico, South America, South Africa, and Australia" are experiencing fierce and fast-paced "wastage" (44). Soon, he suggests a principle that, if applied, may lead to a positive answer to his question. His principle is: "... the less violent the manmade changes, the greater the probability of successful readjustment in the pyramid" (Leopold 44).

In the second to last section, he defines what a "land ethic" is. Initially, there must be individuals who strongly believe in their responsibility to maintain or re-establish "the health of the land" so that a land ethic may be applied (45). Secondly, conservation which preserves "the capacity of the land for self-renewal" must be practiced by those individuals (45).

Under the last sub-heading of the essay, Leopold considers difficulties the public has in understanding the need for a land ethic, and he states solutions for most of them. One of the difficulties he presents is "the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from an intense consciousness of land" (Leopold 46). Another difficulty presented is that the economists have convinced us that "economics determines all land use" (46). On the contrary, he claims that most land relations are determined by a person's inclinations and preferences (46). **(Poston)**