Aldo Leopold is born in 1887, in Burlington, Iowa, growing up along the Mississippi River he was free to roam in nature.
He attends the Yale University Forest School, earning a Master of Forestry in 1909.
The U.S. Forest Service hires him to work in Arizona and New Mexico, as a forest assistant in the Apache and Carson National Forests.
In 1924, he puts forward a proposal to create the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, assigning for the first time, national lands as wilderness areas.
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, New Mexico
This land ethic he speaks of is so simple in its words
Be one with the earth, make the land heard
But every step of the way, humans have pushed and looked away
They want to be top of a food chain where those below don’t get a say
They want to keep living and ignore all the one day’s
But with each person that does that, we seal our fate
If we can gather with the others, the soil, the aspens, the deer
The future becomes peaceful, instead of something to fear
If we can humble ourselves as members not leaders
We can remain home with our earth, we don’t have to leave her
If we can stop searching for things to call “mine”
We can sing our own land ethic to the wind passing by
If we can fathom the limitations that come with time
If we can let go of all our knowing and look for nature’s signs
Then maybe, just maybe, we’ll turn out fine
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