Nature Book Reader June 2020 - Flipbook - Page 76
A Nature Book Reader
CHRIS MACFARLANE
Caught By The River reader
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
To me, A Sand County
Almanac is a truly beautiful
and mesmerising book which
hooked me about 15 years
ago whilst at university. I
wondered how such a
book could be recommended
on a Conservation Biology
module reading list. The
forward begins:
“There are some who
can live without wild things
and some who cannot. These
essays are the delights and
dilemmas of one who cannot“.
In the first part (A Sand
County Almanac), Leopold
describes the range of
characters which exist on and
around his farm in Wisconsin
whether they are trees,
snows, insects, streams, birds,
winds...... His knowledge of
natural history and ecology is
outstanding.
A Sand County Almanac
was published in 1949,
76
shortly after he died in a
forest fire. He is remembered
today as being one of the first
conservationists operating
from a bio-centric standpoint.
He is highly sceptical of
Progress, as the costs to
organisms are often high.
Later in the book, in an essay
called The Land Ethic he
lays out these views with
great economy. It has this
memorable quote:
“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”.
Further Reading
Countryman’s
Cooking by W.M.W. Fowler
Woodlands
by Oliver Rackham
