Aldo Leopold

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Aldo Leopold (left)

Aldo Leopold (born January 11, 1887 in Burlington , Iowa , USA , † April 21, 1948 in Baraboo , Wisconsin , USA) was an American forest scientist , wildlife biologist , hunter and ecologist . He is considered one of the founders of the nature conservation movement. The author of several non-fiction books was a recipient of the Burroughs Medal .

Life

Aldo Leopold began to study in 1905 at the recently founded forestry faculty at Yale University . His German ancestors benefited him here, as knowledge of German was compulsory for studying forestry. This was justified by the fact that the German (Central European) sustainability concept of forestry was taught here. When he graduated, he belonged to the first generation of American foresters .

His first major field of activity was the establishment of a forest administration for the area between the Rio Grande , Colorado River and the Mexican border, a wild landscape with forest areas that were first measured and mapped at this time. Here he met his future wife, the young teacher Estella Bergere, whom he married, although Lutheran , in the Catholic Cathedral of Santa Fe .

In 1915 he was commissioned from Washington to investigate the reasons for the decline in wildlife in his area. With that, his attention turned to wildlife biology . He examined the connections between overgrazing , soil erosion , disturbances in the water balance and the behavior of the fauna , from which he derived a concept that envisaged the establishment of a network of wildlife reserves and the entire Grand Canyon under landscape protection beyond the existing small-scale National Monuments . Both concepts were implemented: the National Wildlife Refuges and the Grand Canyon National Park .

Then he dealt with the aspect of biology , which studies the life of animals and plants in connection with their habitat , ecology . Initially, he took a strictly utilitarian position and called for the wolf and puma to be exterminated in order to promote the deer population he considered desirable. The number of deer per unit area became a measure of the natural integrity of an area. In the following years he relativized this position: In 1933 he rejected the extermination of predators because he had recognized the importance of persecution pressure on the prey population. In the 1940s he measured the ecological quality of an area in terms of the wolf population. A book by the Russian writer and esotericist PD Ouspensky (1878–1947), which appeared in English in 1922 and represented an early version of the " Gaia hypothesis ": "The earth is a coordinated whole," is cited as the trigger for the change in his views . a self-regulating organism, a living being ”.

As early as 1923, based on his experience, he formulated an ethic of sustainability . With this knowledge he began to work at a research institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the Midwest. Here he developed into a recognized wildlife biologist. The friendship with the British naturalist Charles Elton resulted in synergies that profoundly shaped the concept of ecosystems .

The greatest drought in known US climatic history occurred in the Great Plains in the 1930s . Large-scale afforestation was undertaken as countermeasures , but the paradigms that led to the crisis did not change. In the summer of 1935 Leopold set out on a study trip to Germany to collect ideas for sustainable forest management in America. The delegation was received in the forest faculty of the Technical University of Dresden . Aldo Leopold recognized the efforts for nature conservation with the permanent forest in the land of his ancestors , but the rigidly divided and geometrically laid out fields ( surface framework ) showed that the forests were used as “wood factories”. A visit to Gut Neschwitz in Upper Lusatia was also scheduled. The landlord Arnold Freiherr von Vietinghoff-Riesch (1895–1962), a representative of the permanent forest idea, ran his forestry with individual log removal and natural regeneration . Aldo Leopold was enthusiastic.

After returning to the USA, he tried out the ideas he had collected. An abandoned farm on the Wisconsin River , the soil of which was no longer good, became his test site. He successfully began the renaturation of the entire area. Today a variety of forest images can be seen there. Leopold wrote down these observations of nature at work and supplemented them with his extensive experience. The Sand County Almanac , which appeared one year after the author's death in 1949 (German, abbreviated 1992: In the beginning was the earth ) , emerged from this writing .

effect

“Our job is to harmonize the increasing kit of scientific tools and the increasing recklessness in using them with the shrinking biotas to which they are applied. In the nature of things we are mediators and moderators, and unless we can help rewrite the objectives of science we are predestined to failure ”

“It is our job to harmonize the ever-increasing building blocks of scientific instruments and the increasing recklessness of their use with the shrinking biological diversity. It is in the nature of things that we are mediators and moderators; as long as we cannot rewrite the goals of science, we are doomed to failure "

- Aldo Leopold

Today Aldo Leopold is recognized worldwide as a pioneer in ecological thinking. Due to his diverse work in the fields of biology, wildlife biology and ecology, he is considered the founder of wildlife management .

With the essay Land Ethics , which forms the conclusion of the Sand County Almanac , Leopold also became the founder of environmental ethics . He developed ethics as being based in the relationships between individuals and later expanded to include the position of the individual in society. “The land ethic only expands the boundaries of the community and closes soils. Waters, plants and animals, in other words - in summary - the land. ”His ethical principle in dealing with the land states:“ An action is correct if it helps to maintain the integrity, stability and beauty of nature. It is wrong if it does the opposite. "

His commitment to the preservation of wilderness as a natural area largely unaffected by humans led to the designation of the first wilderness reserve in the United States, the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico in 1924 . His writings were influential in introducing the Wilderness Act of 1964, which created a system of fully protected wilderness areas .

His son Aldo Starker Leopold (1913–1983) was also a well-known wildlife ecologist. As a hydrologist and geologist, his son Luna Bergere Leopold was also committed to the idea of ​​sustainability.

Works (selection)

  • Report on a game survey of the north central states. Made by Aldo Leopold for the Sporting arms and ammunition manufacturers' institute under direction of its Committee on restoration and protection of game etc. Madison 1931.
  • Game management. New York 1933.
  • Thinking like a mountain. 1944 (Eng. Thinking like a mountain ) - essay.

Much of his writings were published posthumously in book form in anthologies:

  • A Sand County almanac, and Sketches here and there. New York 1949 (German. In the beginning was the earth. Plea for environmental ethics. Munich 1992, ISBN 3-926901-54-3 ).
  • Luna B. Leopold (Ed.): Round River. From the Journals of Aldo Leopold. New York 1953.
  • A sand county almanac. With other essays on conservation from Round River. New York 1966.
  • David E. Brown, Neil B. Carmony (Eds.): Aldo Leopold's wilderness. Selected early writings by the author of "A sand county almanac". Harrisburg 1990, ISBN 0-8117-1864-6 .
  • Susan L. Flader, J. Baird Callicott (Eds.): The river of the mother of God and other essays. Madison 1991, ISBN 0-299-12760-5 .
  • David E. Brown, Neil B. Carmony (Eds.): Aldo Leopold's Southwest. Albuquerque 1995, ISBN 0-8263-1580-1 .
  • J. Baird Callicott, Eric T. Freyfogle (Eds.):: For the health of the land. Previously unpublished essays and other writings. Washington, DC 1999, ISBN 1-55963-763-3 .

literature

  • Curt Meine: Aldo Leopold. His life and work . University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1988, ISBN 0-299-11490-2 .
  • Hannes Bergthaller: Ecology between science and worldview. Studies on the literature of the modern American environmental movement: Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson , Gary Snyder and Edward Abbey . Dissertation. University of Bonn, Bonn 2004 (online: abstract and link to full text )
  • Hannes Bergthaller: Popular ecology: On literature and history of the modern environmental movement in the USA . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 2007 [revised and expanded version of the dissertation]
  • Thomas Tanner (Ed.): Aldo Leopold. The man and his legacy . Soil Conservation Society of America, Ankeny 1987, ISBN 0-935734-13-9 .
  • Peter Anderson: Aldo Leopold. American ecologist . Watts, New York 1995, ISBN 0-531-20203-8
  • Julie Dunlap: Aldo Leopold. Living with the land . Twenty-First Century Books, New York 1993, ISBN 0-8050-2501-4 .
  • Robert A. McCabe: Aldo Leopold, the professor . Rusty Rock Press, Madison 1987, ISBN 0-910122-98-9 .
  • Anthony Wolff (Ed.): The Sand country of Aldo Leopold. A photographic interpretation by Charles Steinhacker . Sierra Club, San Francisco 1973, ISBN 0-87156-075-5 .
  • Ulrich Grober: Think like a mountain . In: Die Zeit , No. 35/2002; detailed article about Aldo Leopold

Web links

Commons : Aldo Leopold  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. Richard Levine: Indians, Conservation, and George Bird Grinnell . In: American Studies , Volume 28, No. 2, Fall 1987, pages 41-55, page 48 (also online in full text: Indians, Conservation, and George Bird Grinnell . )
  2. Aldo Leopold: In the beginning there was the earth . Knesebeck 1992, ISBN 3-926901-54-3 , page 150 f.
  3. Aldo Leopold: In the beginning there was the earth . Knesebeck 1992, ISBN 3-926901-54-3 , page 174.