[1] Leopold offers an ecologically based land ethic that rejects strictly human-centered views of the environment and focuses on the preservation of healthy, self-renewing ecosystems.
Leopold argued for an ecological approach, becoming one of the first to popularize this term coined by Henry Chandler Cowles of the University of Chicago during his early 1900s research at the Indiana Dunes.
Conservation became the preferred term for the more anthropocentric model of resource management, while the writing of Leopold and his inspiration, John Muir, led to the development of environmentalism.
For example, in 1968, Garrett Hardin applied this philosophy to land issues when he argued that the only solution to the "Tragedy of the Commons" was to place soil and water resources into the hands of private citizens.
"[11] Leopold states the basic principle of his land ethic as: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.
Beyond this, scholars disagree about the extent to which Leopold rejected traditional human-centered approaches to the environment and how literally he intended his basic moral maxim to be applied.
They also debate whether Leopold based his land ethic primarily on human-centered interests, as many passages in A Sand County Almanac suggest, or whether he placed significant weight on the intrinsic value of nature.
One prominent student of Leopold, J. Baird Callicott, has suggested that Leopold grounded his land ethics on various scientific claims, including a Darwinian view of ethics as rooted in special affections for kith and kin, a Copernican view of humans as plain members of nature and the cosmos, and the finding of modern ecology that ecosystems are complex, interrelated wholes.
Unlike more radical environmental approaches, such as deep ecology or biocentrism, it does not require huge sacrifices of human interests.
Many of the things mainstream environmentalists favor—preference for native plants and animals over invasive species, hunting or selective culling to control overpopulated species that are damaging to the environment, and a focus on preserving healthy, self-regenerating natural ecosystems both for human benefit and for their own intrinsic value—jibe with Leopold's ecocentric land ethic.
In this view biodiversity and terrestrial carbon storage - an element of climate change mitigation - are global public goods.
[15] Some critics fault Leopold for lack of clarity in spelling out exactly what the land ethic is and its specific implications for how humans should think about the environment.
[16] It is clear that Leopold did not intend his basic normative principle ("A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community") to be regarded as an ethical absolute.
Thus construed, it would prohibit clearing land to build homes, schools, or farms, and generally require a "hands-off" approach to nature that Leopold plainly did not favor.
Presumably, therefore, his maxim should be seen as a general guideline for valuing natural ecosystems and striving to achieve what he terms a sustainable state of "harmony between men and land."
[17] He often cites examples of environmental damage (e.g., soil erosion, pollution, and deforestation) that result from traditional human-centered, "conqueror" attitudes towards nature.
Leopold also frequently appeals to modern ecology, evolutionary theory, and other scientific discoveries to support his land ethic.
Finally, some critics have questioned whether Leopold's land ethic might require unacceptable interferences with nature in order to protect current, but transient, ecological balances.
In nature, the "stability and integrity" of ecosystems are disrupted or destroyed all the time by drought, fire, storms, pests, newly invasive predators, etc.
According to these critics, Leopold's stress on preserving existing ecological balances is overly human-centered and fails to treat nature with the respect it deserves.