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Weed Laws Article on Landscaping (John Marshall Law Review) Page 3 of 27 Aldo Leopold is a modern prophet,15 the "spiritual father of conservation" 16 and an "authentic American Hero." 17 His classic work, The Sand County Almanac,' 18 in which he articulated the Land Ethic, is the Bible of the modern environmental - conservation movements.19 He was not the first to espouse the notion that humankind and Nature are inter - connected. Henry Thoreau20 and John Muir21 gave this notion a modern voice. Others have spoken.22 Leopold, however, said it best. He combined sound science, clear prose and cogent logic to articulate an objective way of thinking about humans and their relationship with the natural world. Where many scientists of his time saw their work as distinct from economics, politics, religion and other disciplines, Leopold did not compartmentalize his thinkmg or analysis. The Sand County Almanac is a collection of essays in which he attempted to "weld" the concepts of ecology, esthetics, and ethics. An integrated understanding of these ideas was what Leopold termed the Land Ethic.23 A. Ecology Ecology is the scientific study of the relationships between the various components of the natural community. Leopold considered ecology simply the nature of Nature and the proper human role within it.24 He wrote "ecology teaches us that no animal - not even man - can be regarded as independent of his environment. Plants, animals, men and soil are a community of interdependent parts, an organism. "25 Leopold entered the Forest Service in 1911. Stationed in the Carson National Forest in New Mexico, he became an advocate of aggressive predator management. In one of his oft - quoted passages, Leopold wrote what he had learned one day after killing a wolf and the significant impact it had on his thinking: We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger -itch; I thought that because there were fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean a hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.26 He wrote about the consequences of a simple approach to game management, like predator control: Since then, I have lived to see state after state extripate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountam, and seen the south - facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every echble bush and seedling browsed, first to anemic destitute, and then to death. I have seen every echble tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn.... In the end the starved bones of the hoped -for deer herd, dead of its own too -much, are bleach with the bones of dead sap, or molder under the high -lined junipers.27 Leopold's notions of ecology in general, and wildlife management and predator control in particular, although long acknowledged in scientific circles, have now http: / /www.epa.gov /glnpo /greenacres /weedlaws /JMLR.html 2/22/01