An Ecological Study on A Sand County Almanac

Abstract

Aldo Leopold is an American author, scientist, ecologist, conservationist, environmentalist, whose most outstanding and representative work A Sand County Almanac is filled with abundant and deep ecological thoughts. This paper intends to explore Leopold’s ecological thoughts in this book. First, Leopold redefines the relationship between nature and human beings. He states that human beings are part of nature and should show love and respect for it; second, Leopold proposes the famous and significant land ethic theory, which establishes a basis for new ecological ethics. He enlarges the ethic range to land and to the whole nature, sets the criteria of land ethic, and describes the importance of ecological conscience which is fundamentally helpful to solve ecological crisis and protect the ecosystem; third, Leopold elaborates on the values of wilderness, such as the recreational value,the ecological value, the aesthetic value, the scientific value, the ecological value and the cultural value.Nowadays, all these ecological thoughts are still meaningful for people to know and love the nature, to protect the land and the wilderness.