A land ethic (or land ethics) is a philosophy that seeks to guide the actions when humans utilize or mak changes to the land. This specific term was coined by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) in his book A Sand County Almanac (1949). Within this work, he wrote that there is a need for a "new ethic", an "ethic dealing with human's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it". However, while Leopold is credited with coining this term, specific land ethics were in place prior to his writing Sand County Almanac. For example, Leopold himself defines and argues against an economic land ethic.
Read more about Land Ethic: Leopold's Land Ethic
Famous quotes containing the words land and/or ethic:
“The first day that we landed upon that fatal shore
The planters they came round us full twenty score or more,
They rank’d us up like horses, and sold us out of hand
Then yok’d us unto ploughs, my boys, to plow Van
Dieman’s Land.”
—Unknown. Van Dieman’s Land (l. 9–12)
“I’m a Sunday School teacher, and I’ve always known that the structure of law is founded on the Christian ethic that you shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself—a very high and perfect standard. We all know the fallibility of man, and the contentions in society, as described by Reinhold Niebuhr and many others, don’t permit us to achieve perfection.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)