Land Ethic at the Turn of the Millennium
— Biodiversity and Conservation 2000

"The Land Ethic at the Turn of the Millennium," Biodiversity and Conservation 9, no. 8 (August 2000): 1045-1058. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1008918517655
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37121
Aldo Leopold's land ethic has proved more complex and subtle than he envisioned. Nevertheless Leopold launched what, facing a new millennium, has proved urgent on the global agenda: an environmental ethics concerned in theory and practice about appropriate respect for values carried by the natural world and human responsibilities for the sustaining of these values. A blending of anthropocentric and biocentric values continues to be vital. These duties toward nature involve analysis of ecosystem integrity and evolutionary dynamism at both scientific and philosophical levels; any responsible environmental policy must be based on plausible accounts of ecosystems and a sustainable biosphere. Humans and this planet have entwined destinies. We now envision an Earth ethic beyond the land ethic.

Reprinted in Susan J. Armstrong and Richard G. Botzler, eds., Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence, 3rd ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004), pages 392-399.