by By Julianne Lutz Newton
Island Press, 2006
Anyone who’s keeps an almanac or “kitchen book” to record nature’s comings and goings in their backyard is following in the footsteps of Aldo Leopold. He said that those who seek to know a piece of land really well “marvel at the spell it casts on us as seasons turn into years.” A Sand County Almanac, Leopold’s environmental classic, is a beloved collection of essays on man and nature published in 1949, a year after the Midwestern forester died while helping a neighboring landowner contain a grass fire.
For those new to his writing, Leopold was the original “weekender,” bonding with a worn-out farm by the Wisconsin River, which became his family’s sanctuary as well as a laboratory for ecological restoration and place for personal reflection. These notes from “the Shack,” a chicken coop converted to a cabin for his family, earned him a seat at the table of the world’s leading nature writers. He spent his life pondering “what it might take to establish a new understanding of what land is for.” Julianne Lutz Newton’s new book, Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey, chronicles how his career as an American scientist cultivated this “land ethic.”
The trip begins with childhood days hunting and fishing in the heartland, a place of great natural abundance. But Leopold’s Missouri River haunts were on the cusp of huge changes brought by industry and its ripple effects on farming and society. Employed by the U.S. Forest Service, Leopold witnessed damage to the land from poor grazing practices in the West and exploitation of the forests. His life’s work began: how does a moral guide for right use of the land take hold in human beings?
One of my favorite passages of Newton’s book illuminates Leopold’s belief that conservation of precious soil and water might be encouraged through consumer discrimination against what he called “erosion butter” and “devastation milk” produced with unsustainable practices. He believed the practice of forestry was often a destructive force on land when practiced without serious thought to sustainability, an ideal echoed in green marketing efforts today.
Leopold was a gifted leader who set to work on the challenge of instilling an ecological conscience. The restoration work of his farm provided a concrete example for other landowners. Newton’s book is not a biographical record of Leopold’s life. Rather, it shows us how he worked as a forester, student, teacher, and colleague to inspire his fellow scientists.
Each chapter in this book offers plenty of fodder for reflecting on the questions Leopold’s work poses for us today. He hoped that we would learn from our mistakes and develop “ethical behavior not only toward other people but also toward the land itself.” For those who teach and practice conservation, own land, or dream of owning it, Leopold’s gift was to provide simple language to inspire that caring. Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey is an important study of how that gift was born.