Forester Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) is justly celebrated as the founding voice of environmental ethics, even though the discipline did not exist when his book, A Sand County Almanac, was published posthumously in 1949.

At the time of his death in 1948, he was living in Wisconsin, teaching some of the first college courses in ecology. Rather than focus on his Midwestern years, however, this presentation maintains that the seeds of Leopold’s revolutionary thinking can be found in his early years as a forester in Arizona and New Mexico—beginning with a 1909 wolf-shooting incident that led to his famous essay “Thinking Like a Mountain." 

In particular, the program explores how Leopold’s 40-year intellectual journey toward his “land ethic” influenced U.S. environmental policy.

The Leopold family’s “Shack” in Wisconsin has become a popular tourism site and research center.