Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Thinking like a Mountian

For a man living in the 1950's  Aldo Leopold had a surprisingly open, accepting and ecological sustainable view to humanity. Despite the rational way he writes many of his peers would have dismissed his findings and views of them as hippie-like, irrational., and not seeing the whole picture; yet despite this the opposite is true. Today we know the truth of his views as he saw it then, humans cause problems not solutions.

In his own time he understood how an ecosystem works, he understood that if you take any element out, no matter how harmful or minute it may seem, it has a very important role to play in its interaction with other species. His example of the wolves being eliminated and the deer overpopulating is a classic predator prey example, but isn't the only situation where this is applicable. With symbiotic relationships both sides are vital, and when one is eliminated the the other fails too.

In closing, Leopold understood the bigger picture and was able to look beyond just the needs and desires of humanity, and into the lives that it affects, the ones that aren't spent walking on two legs.

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