Ecosystem Markets and Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic
After months of planning and coordinating, we’re finally here in Madison for the Ecosystem Markets Conference.
I’d been really looking forward to one session in particular, Ethical Issues and Concerns with Ecosystem Markets, which ended up being a very engaging group dialogue.
The group took a deeper dive at the ethical implications of placing monetary value on priceless, natural wonders. For conservationists, the concept of doing right by the land is supposed to be engrained in our every action, but is it so? Can we honestly say, without a doubt, that we are doing what’s best for our natural world?
Panelist Curt Meine, an expert on the life of Wisconsinite Aldo Leopold, took a look at how a modern day Leopold might feel about these projects.
With our current period of economic distress in mind, Meine pointed out that Leopold once wrote, “we fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry.” Our economy is fully dependent upon the natural world yet most people fail to realize it.
Leopold creatively refers to “resources” in the skeptical, duplicative, and perhaps contradictory meaning—hence the insertion of the infamous quotation marks around the word. Leopold’s intent was to highlight the fact that our so-called natural “resources” are not just resources—they provide benefits above and beyond what our language can form and describe.
Following this qualification, Meine presented what he thinks would have been Leopold’s likely position on ecosystem markets. “[Leopold] doesn’t see the market or the government as the solution to every problem. He was walking a fine line his whole life of various ideologies. This is why we can’t close the door on any possibility. He stood for everything, all imaginative approaches, but with caution.” Leopold’s caution was that all approaches, all new ideas and innovations, must incorporate a deep-rooted land ethic to preserve and protect land health.
Meine asked that those in the room become ethicists—to wear two hats during our day-to-day lives—so we can investigate all sides of the story. He asked that ethical discussions, however complex they may be, advance just as quickly as economic discussions because in order to ensure preservation of our environmental morality, we must approach things in a slightly different manner.
Nearly through day two of the 4th annual Ecosystems Markets Conference, I write this feeling dedicated more than ever to furthering the universal goal of conservation while challenging myself to become an ethicist in training.
Thanks to breakout session moderator Environmental Defense Fund and panelists from The Aldo Leopold Foundation, Institute for Natural Resources at Oregon State, and Sally Collins, a Rights and Resources Initiative Fellow and AFF board member.
Visit www.facebook.com/americanforestfoundation for conference highlights and photos.
Photo of Aldo Leopold credit Flickr's USFS Region 5.
