A considerable number of the modern-day conservation principles have their origins from the teachings of Ado Leopold and Henry David Thoreau. These two early American conservationists were instrumental in advancing restoration and preservation of nature at their time, and still, most conservationists are inspired by their tremendous efforts. Thoreau is known for authoring the book “ The Maine Woods ” that revolves around a reflection on simple living in natural surroundings. In the case of Leopold, he is known for his book “ A Sand County Almanac ."
Thoreau made three trips in three years to the vast and unexplored woods of Maine. He had an opportunity to paddle canoe during the moonlight climb mountains, dine on moose lips, hemlock tea and cedar beer. In his trip, Thoreau had a chance to observe the vast rivers, lakes, starts, moose, and mountains. He also accounts of sitting with men who would write notes on the tree barks. The book, The Maine Woods is made up of three different essays; Mount Ktaadn, the Chesuncook River and the Allagash and East Brach Rivers . In his compositions, he gives the readers an account of a vast and pristine wilderness that is under threats of logging, despoliation, and growth of towns.
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According to Thoreau’s perceptive of the wilderness, it is one made up of huge and vast lands that have not been destroyed by human civilization. During his first visit to Main, Thoreau states that he encountered wilderness in Ktaadn of the Maine Woods. Thoreau could not believe his eyes following the vastness and sublimity of nature that he saw. And to him, this was “uninhabited wilderness” (Thoreau, 1864). Thoreau went to Ktaadn's summit, and as he looked down, all he could see before him was an enormous plain stretching hundreds of acres. This cool landscape as he describes dwarfed him for the land was unique, savage, barren and whereby human existence was meaningless and minor. According to him, this sight was very different from the forest he saw in Concord. Up at the summit of Ktaadn, the flow of natural forces gashed over his face, and he also felt threatened for trespassing into such virgin lands. Thoreau’s discovery at Ktaadn was very different from the life he was living which to him was a “sort of border life” (Thoreau, 1864). Thoreau believes that it is this type of wilderness that normal human beings need and therefore there was and to draw a line between civilization and wilderness. Instead of people clearing lands and building hoses and towns, they should rather look for “partially cultivated lands” and build their permanent residences rather than clearing trees.
Thoreau stated that the wilderness is of significance to man because “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer” (Thoreau, 1864). This statement is used to celebrate an individual who chooses to spend some time in the wilderness rather than the big cities. The wilderness should be a place whereby an individual should develop a link with nature. Instead of this, the human beings are trying to remold the world into their own images, and in the process, they bring about a society that is restless, alienated and unhealthy. During his second trip to Maine, Thoreau championed for the preservation of the wilderness. The name of his second trip is based on the killing and skinning of moose, and he refers to it as "Chesuncook." Thoreau is angered by the “murder” of the moose for he remembers how he would walk under the moonlight to meet a moose during his Ktaadn trip (Thoreau, 1864). Thoreau links the killing and skinning of the moose to the loggers’ destruction of the pines. According to Thoreau, most of the plants and trees found in the rainforest are harvested for food and manufacturing of drugs respectively. Thoreau believes that the construction of national parks will bring about deforestation and extinction of some species. Logging is undertaken also to create and homes and this is a war against the forests. In return, the rainforest lacks the ability to restore back to its original status within a short time, and this will bring about an end to the wilderness. Therefore, in his essay Chesuncook, he is trying to call for national action that would see the wilderness being brought back (Thoreau, 1864).
According to Leopold his idea of wilderness involved a continuous stretch of land that is designated and protected from human civilization as evidenced by his book, The Sand County of Almanac . Leopold is renowned for making significant contributions towards the wilderness policy formulation and philosophy. Leopold believed in the fact that, there was a need to separate land especially within the forests and label them as protected wilderness (Leopold, 1949). At the time, there was an increasing number of camping and tourism operations within forested regions, and most lands were allocated towards the construction of hotel and roads. It was at this point that Leopold thought of protecting such areas for he stated that “Transportation brings about another basic change: the plants or animals grown in one region are now consumed and returned to the soil in another” (Leopold, 1949). From this statement, Leopold believed that as a result of transportation, most the plants and animals were being destroyed and it is at this point that he decided to push for the protection of some area in which he referred to them as "wilderness."
As a result of his appreciation for wilderness, he came up with new arguments that would be used in preserving it which he referred to as the land ethics. This would ensure that there is a more positive affiliation between the human and non-human nature. In so doing, he viewed the land as being an interdependent system consisting of natural processes, animals, plants and soil. Through this, he wanted people to see the land as being a living entity, and thus it can also be sick or healthy just like a human being. In his arguments, he stated that through cycles, the nutrients found in soil could either become deleted or retained, soil can also undergo accumulation or depletion and so can the species become extinct or persist (Leopold, 1949). As such, it is only healthy land that can fully replenish itself if disturbed. From this, the land ethics was therefore based on the notion that it was only through an ethical attitude towards land would the human beings have an ability to prevent it from destruction. This should be similar to the care that an individual feels towards his/her neighbor or community.
It is evident that Thoreau and Leopold played a vital role in pushing for the conservation of the environment. As seen from their wilderness concepts, it is an indication that humankind has the greatest responsibility towards conserving the environment. Nonetheless, the two authors have a different perspective on the wilderness concept. According to Thoreau’s, his viewpoint of the wilderness is of huge and vast lands that have not been destroyed by human civilization. Thoreau believed that the only way this wilderness could be protected is by sopping the increasing rates of human civilization resulting from the logging to get raw material for drugs and lands for building homes and cities. On the other hand, Leopold’s perspective of wilderness is that it is made up of a continuous stretch of land that is designated and protected from human civilization. Despite the two authors having a dissimilar perceptive of wilderness, their principles have played a vital role in environmental conservation.
References
Leopold, A. (1949). A sand county almanac . New York: Ballantine.
Thoreau, H. D. (1864). The Maine woods. Princeton: Princeton UP
