Aldo Leopold

"Aldo Leopold's classic work A Sand County Almanac is widely regarded as one of the most influential conservation books of all time. In it, Leopold set forth an eloquent plea for the development of a "land ethic" - a belief that people have a responsibility to treat the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise "the land" in ways that ensure their well-being."--BOOK JACKET. "For the Health of the Land is a new collection of rare and previously unpublished essays by Leopold that builds on that vision of ethical land use. It develops the important concept of "land health" - by which Leopold meant the capacity for self-renewal in nature - and the practical measures land-owners can take to sustain it."--BOOK JACKET.

First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite, A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for Americas relationship to the land. Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the Wisconsin countryside; another part that gathers informal pieces written by Leopold over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba, and elsewhere; and a final section in which Leopold addresses the philosophical issues involved in wildlife conservation. As the forerunner of such important books as Annie Dillards Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Edward Abbeys Desert Solitaire, and Robert Finchs The Primal Place, this classic work remains as relevant today as it was forty years ago.