Environmentalist Leopold deserves continued study

Our state has long been home to many people who treasure nature in all its vast and varying forms. People traveled to this state from far-away homes to establish new lives, made possible by the bounty that the rich waters and soil yielded.

Those who understood and appreciated what our resources provide were sometimes moved to do what they could to protect or conserve them. Manitowoc County has certainly has had its share of conservation legends, some of whom helped preserve Point Beach, Collins Marsh, the Rahr Forest and Woodland Dunes.

In particular, two people from Wisconsin are often held in highest esteem among conservationists, and both had connections with the University of Wisconsin as well. The first is John Muir, who came with his family from Scotland at a young age to the central part of the state to farm. He later attended UW just a few years after its founding, then left to embark on remarkable journeys of discovery of nature, journeys which eventually led him West where he was an important spokesman for conservation and later founded the Sierra Club and helped establish our national parks.

The second was Aldo Leopold, who was born in Iowa and who worked for the U.S. Forest Service and in the 1930s the Forest Products Laboratory, a position that brought him to Madison.

After a few years he began a teaching career at the University of Wisconsin, and he is considered to be one of the originators of modern wildlife management methods. Leopold remained in Madison for the rest of his life, contributing much to our knowledge of wildlife and helping to found the Wilderness Society.

While there, he purchased an old, bankrupt farm near Baraboo, renovated its chicken coop as a family cabin, and visited on weekends to work to restore its land, observe and record its phenology (seasonal natural events), and to write about nature. As he thought about nature and peoples' impact on it, he developed what he called a land ethic — a philosophy, or morality, relating to how we have come to use or abuse natural systems. A number of his writings were gathered and published as "A Sand County Almanac."