“One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value. Wildflowers and songbirds are examples. Of the 22,000 higher plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use. Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I believe) its stability depends on its integrity, they are entitled to continuance.”

— Aldo Leopold, book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 210.

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Aldo Leopold130

American writer and scientist 1887–1948

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“Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

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Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 224-225.

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 224-225.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
Context: Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

“In India, no power plant runs beyond 58 per cent of its capacity. I believe instead of making yet another plant which is really disastrous, what you should do first is to go in for conservation - that is increase your 58 per cent to 90 per cent. Your power problem would be solved right there.”

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“One of the symptoms of a declining social order is that its members have to give most of their time to politics, rather than to the real tasks of economic production, in an attempt to patch up the cracks already appearing from the 'inner contradictions' of such a system.”

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Ray Lyman Wilbur (1875–1949) President of Stanford University

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Aldo Leopold130

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