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J. Baird Callicott on Leopold's Land Ethic

September 24, 2008

An attempt to realize a distinction between anthropogenic changes and “natural” changes in the environment is a futile effort that introduces far too much philosophy into the debate over environmental conservation. The very fact that humans have evolved from lower primates into the dominant species on earth is a testament to the power of Darwin’s natural selection, adaptation, and a host of unequivocally “natural” processes. Just as the quick decimation of a fallen tree at the hands of a termite colony would raise few eyebrows, the role of humans in earth’s degradation is no more or less a natural. The distinction is scale.

As a species with vast intelligence we’re capable of using technology to infinitely multiply our consumption of resources. This ability, which sets us apart from every other species on the planet, simultaneously commands us to couple our actions with a moral code. We have a responsibility to ensure the health of the planet in a way that negates the need for any discussion of what is and is not “natural”. J Baird Callicott correctly asserts that “objectively good anthropogenic change is change that benefits people and maintains land health” and “objectively bad anthropogenic change is change that results in land sickness or worse in the death of ecosystems” (390). This definition leaves ample room for natural human development while recognizing our moral imperative to maintain the health of the environment.

Within this context we’re able to create a rubric by which we can judge the acceptability of our actions and define standards for our overall environmental strategy. While still recognizing our need to support our own population, we must support Callicott’s notion that “human economic activities should certainly be constrained by considerations of land health” (391). By adopting a mentality that promotes land health we have a framework to place restraints on over-development and judge the necessity of our burgeoning footprint. In a grizzly and effective metaphor Callicott equates our environmental callousness to that of a malicious doctor.

“One can imagine all sorts of unnecessary and disfiguring operations that an unscrupulous doctor might perform on an unwitting patient, none of which ultimately compromises the patient’s health, to satisfy the doctor’s own whims or economic interests. But such operations would certainly compromise the patient’s dignity and would violate the patient’s rights.”

Callicott reminds us that populated land can be healthy, and although there is a justification for seeking to maintain scarce “wilderness” regions, there is a simultaneous need to improve the ecosystems in areas where humans have an ingrained presence. To this end, Callicott and Leopold agree that we need not attempt to maintain land in an “untrammeled” condition but rather to “determine the ecologic parameters within which land may be humanely occupied without making it dysfunctional” (388). Exactly what these parameters would be, of course, is at the heart of the ongoing arguments over land use and planning.

Leopold seeks to address this issue by formulating a definition of land-sickness including “soil erosion and loss of fertility, hydrologic abnormalities, and the occasional irruptions of some species and the mysterious local extinctions of others” (388). Because these conditions are increasingly present around the world it would be fair and accurate to decree the relative poor health of the planet. From this baseline, however, we have an opportunity to significantly change the course of human events and define a new “natural” history.

Filed under: Perspectives on the Environment