The Hope Of The Future Lies Not

There Is Yet No Ethic Dealing With Man's Relation To Land And To The Animals And Plants Which Grow Upon It. Land, Like Odysseus' Slave-girls, Is Still Property. The Land-relation Is Still Strictly Economic, Entailing Privileges But Not Obligations.

Hydrologists Have Demonstrated That The Meanderings Of A Creek Are A Necessary Part Of The Hydrologic Functioning. The Flood Plain Belongs To The River. The Ecologist Sees Clearly That For Similar Reasons We Can Get Along With Less Channel Improvement On Round River.

Wildflower Corners Are Easy To Maintain, But Once Gone, They Are Hard To Rebuild.

My Favorite Quote: The Land Ethic Simply Enlarges The Boundaries Of The Community To Include Soils, Waters, Plants, And Animals, Or Collectively: The Land. In Short, A Land Ethic Changes The Role Of Homo Sapiens From Conqueror Of The Land-community To Plain Member And Citizen Of It. It Implies Respect For His Fellow-members, And Also Respect For The Community As Such.

Our Remnants Of Wilderness Will Yield Bigger Values To The Nation's Character And Health Than They Will To Its Pocketbook, And To Destroy Them Will Be To Admit That The Latter Are The Only Values That Interest Us.