The Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values Seminar Theme 1999-2000 The Land Ethic Revisited: Ownership, Stewardship and Moral Responsibility in an Ecosystem

      In 1949, Aldo Leopold wrote an essay entitled "The Land Ethic" which appeared as the last chapter in his famous work, A Sand County Almanac. In this essay he expressed the thought that ethical systems evolve as human communities extend their sense of responsibility. As he put it:

     "The extension of ethics, ...is actually a process in ecological evolution. Its sequences may be described in ecological as well as in philosophical terms....
     The first ethics dealt with the relations between individuals....Later accretions dealt with the relation between the individual and society....
     There is as yet no ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land...is still property. The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.
     The extension of ethics to this third element in human environment is, if I read the evidence correctly an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity. It is the third step in a sequence. The first two have already been taken. Individual thinkers since the days of Ezekiel and Isaiah have asserted that the despoliation of the land is not only inexpedient but wrong. Society, however, has not yet affirmed their belief. I regard the present conservation movement as the embryo of such an affirmation."

      Fifty years after these words were written, we would do well to reflect upon them with an eye to discerning whether or not we have made siginificant progress in developing "the land ethic" of which Leopold wrote so passionately. Is it still true in 1999, as Leopold asserted in 1949, that: "There is as yet no ethic dealing with man's relation to land...."?

      Are lone voices like Ezekiel and Isaiah still "crying in the wilderness?" Are their numbers at least more numerous? What prevents them from being heard? If "society" is not yet guided by a land ethic, what has prevented this ethic from emerging, as Leopold thought it would, through the embryonic "conservation movement"? What does it require to move from lone voices of outrage, protest and judgment to effective public policy that could foster a collective sense of a meaningful land ethic? More fundamentally, what might a true land ethic look like? Can humans really "own" land? What can social conventions of ownership effectively mean in an ecosystem characterized by process and constant change? If concepts of ownership are of limited use, are we, instead, "stewards" of the land? If so, on whose behalf? What responsibilities do we as humans have to land in a sustainable ecosystem?

      These and many other questions will serve as the basis for our collective reflections this year in the Seminar Series as scientists, humanists, policy makers, businessmen and public leaders gather each month to exchange views on what Aldo Leopold called "an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity" -- a land ethic.

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Seminar Schedule

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	Day	Event	Time and Location or Contact Information

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Fall Semester 1999

October 28 Thursday

Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values J. Baird Callicott, Professor of Philosophy, University of North Texas -- "Reading A Sand County Almanac." (Some Readings and Resources).

For information contact Tim Weiskel tel. 496-5208

November 17 Wednesday

Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values Dr. David R. Foster, Director, The Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts -- "Thoreau's Country and the Restoration of the New England Landscape."

For information contact Tim Weiskel tel. 496-5208

December 15 Wednesday

Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values Dianne Dumanoski, Investigative Science Journalist and Environmental Writer. "From the Land Ethic to the Uncharted Territory of Global Humanity." (Some Readings and Resources).

For information contact Tim Weiskel tel. 496-5208

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Spring Semester 2000

February 15 Tuesday

Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values Wes Jackson, President, The Land Institute, Salina, Kansas. "Clear-Cutting the Last Wilderness: Compromising the Genomes of Our Major Crops." (Readings and Research Resources).

For information contact Tim Weiskel tel. 496-5208

March 21 Tuesday

Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values Professor Joan Martinez-Alier, Professor, Department of Economics and Economic History, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain; Visiting Fellow, Program in Agrarian Studies, Yale University, "Environmental Justice, Sustainability and Valuation."

For information contact Tim Weiskel tel. 496-5208

April 18 Tuesday

Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values Richard H. Grove, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, "The Culture of Islands and the History of Environmental Concern."

For information contact Tim Weiskel tel. 496-5208

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Archive of 1998-1999 Seminar Meetings | Archive of 1997-1998 Seminar Meetings | Archive of 1996-1997 Seminar Meetings

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Dr. Timothy C. Weiskel
Director, Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values
56 Francis Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138

or call:

tel. 617-496-5208

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