Also Leopold on Wilderness Conservation
In an article arguing for conservation of wilderness areas, Aldo Leopold had the following to say:
[I]f in a city we had six vacant lots available to the youngsters of a certain neighborhood for playing ball, it might be "development" to build houses on the first, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and even the fifth, but when we build houses on the last one, we forget what houses are for. The sixth house would not be development at all, but rather it would be mere short-sighted stupidity. "Development" is like Shakespeare's virtue, "which grown into a pleurisy, dies of its own too-much."
In objecting to the dedication of the Gila as a permanent wilderness hunting ground it has been truly said that a part of the area which would be "locked up" bears valuable stands of timber. I admit that this is true. Likewise, might our sixth lot be a corner lot, and hence very valuable for a grocery store or a filling station. I still insist it is the last lot for a needed playground, and this being the case, I am not interested in grocery stores of filling stations, of which we have a fair to middling supply elsewhere.*
In another context Leopold wrote something that I deeply believe:, "We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations, the important thing is not to achieve but to strive."
*Leopold, Aldo: A Plea for Wilderness Hunting Grounds, Outdoor Life, November 1925.