teaching

At the beginning of SAND COUNTY ALMANAC Aldo Leopold divides humanity into two groups: those who can't live without wild things and those who can.

I'm in the second group. I need to visit wild places, and when I'm not in them (most of the time), I need to know wild things are out there, simply being wild.

There is no certain human utility to real wildness as far as I understand it, though some people believe that they can't live without wildness because it provides habitat for the animals they like to hunt, territory for trails they like to hike, reservoirs for wild plants containing some undiscovered medicine that might cure cancer, or distant vistas for the scenes they like to photograph.

Once in the presence of wildness, its possible to perceive how its real value is something beyond these simple utilities. True wildness, as Wallace Stegner said in his famous 1963 "Wilderness Letter" is "part of the geography of hope," and we who love it and need it should take pleasure in knowing that "such a timeless and uncontrolled part of the earth is still there."