land ethics

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Land Ethics

Written by: Shawn Monaghan (Critical on Scribd.com).

NOV 94

Please refer to essay part I as an introduction to this essay. Due to the incredibly

low mark I received in part I ,as well as the selection of the Land Ethic as my

primary theory of adjudication, certain revisions have been made to part II. I will

shift focus from the specific organisms that subsist in the soil environment to the

actual soil ecosystem itself. Please note: due to the failing mark referred to

above, this essay is longer than the prescribed 15 pages in the interests of

reclamation of said marks.

Throughout the last 1000 years or so western culture can be said to have been in a

continuous struggle between the individual and the society as a whole. Initially our

society was a sort of primitive communal system, slowly it changed and evolved into

more diverse and complex structures. The individual very slowly began to become a

prominent aspect of society, with fluctuations between a more communal and a

more atomistic basis. It is in part to Karl Marx that we owe the exposition of this

sort of process: from 'primitive' communal, to feudal, to capitalist, and finally to

the ultimate communal Utopian finale. This process we call a dialectic: where a

thesis and its antithesis combine and evolve into a synthesis.

The process is never ending, the synthesis from the last cycle becomes the new


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thesis and its opposite arises to become the antithesis and a new synthesis occurs.

In this essay I give a name to these elements of the dialectic and explore how they

can shape our ethical world. The thesis is communalism, societal integrity and

stability (holism). The antithesis is individualism, atomistic tendencies. Together

these two concepts have combined and


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interacted with each other resulting in an increasingly complex societal structure

with a correspondingly complex ethic. Occasionally society settles into a

momentary equilibrium with either the whole or the individual as dominant, but the

process continues. Societal structure tends toward complexity, as the process

continues the give and take of individual versus the whole becomes more intricate.

The land ethic represents the communal aspect of this struggle, while rights

theorists like Regan represent the atomistic tendencies. Neither aspect of this

struggle is the ultimate answer to our ethical needs and goals.

Agriculture in Southwestern Ontario has become increasingly mechanized,

specialized and capitalized (Smithers p5). This increase of technology is often

referred to in Western culture as 'progress' due to the perceived increase of

productivity resulting from the technology. Unfortunately what this thing we call

progress appears to mean to the environment is degradation. Increasingly we are

discovering that what is progress today is really non-sustainable development in

terms of tomorrow.

..., it is now generally accepted that such productivity gains in the agricultural

sector of Canada and other developed countries have occurred at the expense of

environmental quality and soil fertility (Smithers p5).

Much of increased production according to Smithers has resulted from use of


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"marginal areas" of land. In terms of this study marginal land use means land which

is not capable of supporting even modest agricultural husbandry, without extensive

use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and/or extensive irrigation. Other farming

trends that cause increased production at the price mentioned above include:

1. Abandonment of forage-based crop rotations for monoculture row crop

agriculture.

2. Increasing regional specialization of agriculture with the emergence of large

areas devoted to cash crop agriculture and an accompanying reduction in

dairying and livestock production. Accordingly, the diminished demand for

hay crops has further reduced the use of forage in rotation.

3. Enlargement of farms and farm fields and subsequent reliance on capital-

intensive technologies and purchased inputs.

4. Growing reliance on debt financing which has left many farmers vulnerable

to the potentially crippling effects of high interest rates. In the interest

of remaining solvent many responsible farmers have been forced to

emphasize short-term cash flow (Smithers p5).

Following the above list of trends in Smither's work is a list of practices that are

prevalent in Southwestern Ontario that lead to environmental damage. The most


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important include tilling methods and cropping systems (Smithers p7).

Farmers use tilling of the soil primarily to control weeds and for incorporation of

pesticides and fertilizers into the soil. The impact that this sort of tillage has on

the soil is to loosen the soil and remove organic matter (ground cover) from its

surface, thereby increasing the wind and water erosion that occurs.

Conservationary methods that are recommended include 'no-tillage'(as in 'no

tolerance') through modified versions of the traditional "moldboard plow"

(Smithers p8).

The cropping systems that farmers use are characterized by "continuous corn"

which involve no or almost no return of organic matter to the soil. The impact of

continuous cropping on the soil is reduced ground cover and as a result increased

soil erosion (Smithers p8-9).

A further impact of the above farming methods is the pollution of bodies of water.

Or more specific to Southwestern Ontario the pollution of the great lakes by both

greater sedimentation and poisoning due to high phosphorous concentrations

(among other effluents). Further investigation of the pollution of the great lakes

would broaden the scope of this paper beyond the levels assigned. Although it is

beyond the scope of this assignment it is still important to make note that the

adverse effect of the above farming methods are not limited strictly to the


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ecosystem of the soil.

The result of soil erosion has been reduced viability of the soil to support its

normal contingent of the food web in two major capacities. First, loss of the soils

sheer volumetric ability to accommodate various organisms dependent on its part in

the ecological cycle, and second the soils loss of important nutrients such as

phosphorous.

Soil erosion results in the damage or destruction of the soil ecosystem. The soil

ecosystem is a very important part of the global ecosystem in fact the global

ecosystem is a conglomerate of all of the various soil ecosystems and something

Alan Wild in, Soils and the Environment: An Introduction, calls life zones:

Soils, plants, animals and microorganisms form an ecosystem such as a tropical

forest: all the world's tropical forests constitute a life zone and all the life zones

(grasslands, other forests, tundra, oceans etc.) form the global ecosystem (Wild

p5).

Wild further continues to describe how soil is the basis of each life zone, providing

a medium for nutrients and water in one way or another for all plants, animals, and

insects that exist in this ecosystem. The plants eject oxygen as a waste

component, while using up carbon dioxide as a primary element of their metabolism.


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The animals and insects eject carbon dioxide as a waste, while consuming oxygen

and nutrients provided by the plants. If a number or even a few of these "life

zones" are destroyed or even weakened the overall global ecosystem also will be

weakened, its diversity and integrity lessened.

An objection to the above might be: the loss of soil to erosion is not a major

problem to the ecosystem as of yet and will not be a problem for a long time if

ever, after all, it is a natural process. In answer to this objection: marginal lands

(as defined above) are severely damaged in respect of loss of ability to maintain

the ecosystem which is dependent on it right now. And it is clear that even in non-

marginal lands soil erosion will eventually deplete the land completely of soil. The

land will be incapable of sustaining as diverse an ecosystem, as it would if healthy,

long before complete depletion of soil occurs. In regard to the natural

replenishment of the soil through decomposition of surrounding rock and additional

organic matter, the answer is that the soil can not replenish itself. Organic matter

is not being returned to the soil in most lands due to current cropping and tilling

methods as outlined above. Also it is quite generally accepted within the

agricultural and scientific community that soil erosion is occurring at a much faster

rate than it can be replenished by nature. A certain amount of erosion is natural,

but human induced erosion takes place at a much greater rate than natural


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processes can replenish.

Aldo Leopold's, "Land Ethic", has a great wealth of ideas to provide in response to

the aforementioned objection:

The process of altering the pyramid for human occupation releases stored energy

and this often gives rise, during the pioneering period, to a deceptive exuberance

of plant and animal life, both wild and tame. These releases of biotic capital tend

to becloud or postpone the penalties of violence (Leopold p79).

The fact that we are currently not experiencing anything we could call a major

catastrophe from erosion of soil does not suggest that there is no problem. In the

above quotation Leopold implies that the abundance we often associate with

opening new frontiers or breaking 'virginal' land is really energy released from the

shortening of the natural cycle of that ecosystem.

This energy release thereby dampens the ecosystems vitality and longevity.

Although Leopold limits his observation of energy release to "the pioneering

period", it is also an excellent explanation of why we have not yet observed any

major repercussions from our abuse of the ecosystem even this far removed from

the pioneering period.

This "stored energy", as Leopold calls it, is still being exploited by humans it is


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extracted like an increasingly powerful pump by present technologies like

fertilizers and pesticides. This improvement of the pump would not be so bad if it

were not for the complete neglect of the well. Since this stored energy humans

are pumping from the land is not being replaced, eventually the well will run dry.

According to Leopold's analogy and also according to the information provided

above that well is currently running dry and we need a way to address this problem

(Leopold p81). Leopold provides even more convincing information to the debate

with his reference to evidence that the well is running dry:

Perhaps the most important of these is the new evidence that poundage or tonnage

is no measure of the food-value of farm crops; the products of fertile soil may be

qualitatively as well as quantitatively superior. We can bolster poundage from

depleted soils by pouring on imported fertility, but we are not necessarily

bolstering food-value (Leopold p81).

The ethical theory I have chosen to apply to the above situation is Aldo Leopold's

"the Land Ethic" in People, Penguins, and Plastic Trees, edited by Donald VanDeveer

and Christine Pierce. Leopold's non-extensionist theory provides an ethical

framework based on the interconnectedness of everything.

The reasons I have for choosing a holistic theory over an atomistic theory are


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simple. The particular situation which I am investigating in this essay requires a

moral theory of a holistic nature to determine the answer to the two main

questions: who has moral standing, and how does one adjudicate amongst those with

moral standing. By its very nature an atomistic ethical theory can only reasonably

explain moral standing in relation to the individual.

Entities that are not considered individuals: are not considered alive, or conscious,

or capable of being, or doing anything (doing that which we normally consider an

individual to be or capable of doing). Entities which are not individuals (as

'individual' is currently defined) can not therefore be considered to have rights in

any way. Some atomistic theories could be readily modified to establish moral

duties towards non-living entities, but none are available that demonstrate

inherent value of non-living entities.

It is true that with some time and great effort entities which are not currently

considered to be individuals could eventually be redefined as individuals. However,

for the present entities like rivers, mountains, and soil are not individuals and very

few people if anybody have tried to define them as such. Furthermore, none of

the atomistic theories on the reading list of this course attempt to redefine non-

living entities as individuals and therefore these theories are useless to my

particular case study.


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The only theories dealt with in this course that establish an ethical system

comprehensive enough to give real value to non-living entities are the holistic

theories, and because they are ideally suited to this purpose they are also ideal for

this particular case study.

Another important aspect of holistic theories as characterized by the land ethic is

the absence of a hierarchal ordering of the entities with moral standing. Any

ethical theory that has a moral hierarchy suffers by definition from a certain lack

of relevance in its criterion for moral standing. I challenge anyone to derive a

criterion for moral standing which establishes a hierarchy that is not in some form

discriminatory or morally irrelevant on some basis. I interpret Leopold's land ethic

as placing all members of the biotic community on an equal moral standing. This

leads to a discussion of a hierarchy of a different kind allow me to list them.

Firstly, the hierarchy that atomistic theories establish of individual over communal

interests. Secondly, the hierarchy that holistic theories establish of the interests

of the whole over the interests of the individual. Both hierarchies are equally

morally irrelevant and this is perhaps the source of the unending struggle between

the two disciplines. Neither school of thought has an adequate foot hold over the

other, they both have fundamental assumptions which are unfounded, and yet they

both continue as if each was the one real truth.


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The reason I choose Leopold's land ethic over other holistic theories, dealt with in

this course, had mainly to do with the relative complexity of his theory. Another

major factor in my selection of an appropriate theory had to do with the length

and complexity of the various source materials. Arne Neass' Deep Ecology was

presented in this course through the format of an interview, perhaps this is a

reflection of the relative newness of his theory but this format was not very

informative or instructive. If Deep Ecology was presented in an essay or article

and tied together with a thesis then it would be much better communicated and

understood.

Without a single directing thesis statement Deep ecology does not appear in a

holistic format, only its various parts can be understood without knowledge of its

totality. It is quite ironic that the theory which is most reputed to deal ethically

with the ecosystem as a totality is not itself presented as a whole but as a

grouping of parts.

Eco-feminism as an ethical theory appears to be even more new than Deep Ecology,

and the length of the article on the course reading list reflects this. The article

written by Judith Plant has little or no reference to either moral standing or

adjudication amongst those with moral standing. The above is also reflected in the

article on Social ecology.


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Although this lack of a definitive answer to the two central questions of this

course does not in itself make these theories less valuable, it does make this essay

assignment more difficult to deal with. Since the central theme of this assignment

appears to be to determine moral standing and thereafter to determine a method

of adjudication, it seems inappropriate to select a theory which does not deal with

these questions. Not only do these theories not directly deal with the above two

questions but they may purposefully avoid or side-step them in the interests of

furthering the field of ethics.

Unfortunately I can not fathom any good reason for ignoring moral standing and

the adjudication process within an ethical theory. The above omissive aspect of

Social ecology and Eco-feminism is negative in that application of such an ethic will

likely be impossible until adequate definitions are derived.

According to Leopold's theory the world is an interconnected totality, something

done to one part of it affects all parts. In this theory Leopold establishes that

,"the soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land." should be included

in our moral circle not just individuals with certain characteristics (Leopold p74).

Leopold continues with his elaboration of his theory by concluding that humans are

not superior and that we should not dominate nature.

In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo Sapiens from conqueror of the


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land-community to plain member and citizen of it (Leopold p74)

According to Leopold the Land ethic is necessary if we are to succeed in preserving

the environment. Conservation based on "economics motives" is worthless since

"most members of the land community have no economic value" (Leopold p76).

What happens with an economic based conservation system is that aspects of the

ecosystem that are considered valuable are preserved and protected, while other

members of the ecosystem which are not considered valuable are destroyed out of

hand. There is no consideration that those aspects of the environment which are

valued are dependent on those which are considered valueless. In short without

ethical theories like the land ethic, concepts like the interconnectedness of all

beings are overlooked for more convenient views or in this case atomistic views.

Leopold's land ethic requires that we expand our moral community to the land.

Land in this case is not merely ground or soil but includes all beings and aspects of

the land as a collective whole: including soil, bodies of water, plants, and animals.

Furthermore Leopold states that the land ethic places humans beside the other

parts of the moral community not above. The traditional hierarchy that our

society has so long taken as a given is no longer an option. The traditional role of

humans as conquerors of nature in Leopold's conceptualization is a self-defeating


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role:

In human history, we have learned (I hope) that the conqueror role is eventually

self-defeating. Why? Because it is implicit in such a role that the conqueror

knows, ex cathedra, just what makes the community clock tick, and just what and

who is valuable, and what and who is worthless, in community life. It always turns

out that he knows neither, and this is why his conquests eventually defeat

themselves (Leopold p74).

Leopold continues by describing the existence of humankind as only a member of

the biotic community. The description of which establishes that historical events

in which humans have been considered the only important actors are really only one

of the many important actors. Perhaps humans could even be considered the least

important actors when compared as a single group to the entire biotic community.

His examples include the settlement of the Mississippi Valley and the Kentucky

blue-grass drama. In both of these cases Leopold establishes that humans have

been among the least important actors in determining the outcome (Leopold p75).

Moral standing according to the land ethic then is based solely on membership

within the global ecosystem. Rivers, soil, plants, and animals as members of this

community have moral standing along with humans in a non-hierarchical ethical


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grouping. Interpretation of Leopold's method of adjudication amongst those with

moral standing is a somewhat more tricky feat however:

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 (Leopold p82).

One "certain" aspect of the "stability" of the biotic system that we know of,

Leopold asserts, is the evolution of the system from lesser to greater complexity

(Leopold p78). Therefore diversity is an important aspect of the biotic community

also. Although Leopold chose not to include it in his definitive statement quoted

above, it is nonetheless a very important aspect of both the integrity and stability

of a biotic community. In fact considering that Leopold was not a philosopher it

might be appropriate to amend his above formula to exclude beauty and replace it

with diversity for the purposes of clarity and validity. I am not saying that beauty

is unimportant, but any good philosopher knows that beauty is impossible to define

and such ill-defined terms add nothing but complications to what could otherwise

be an ironclad theory.

To apply Leopold's theory to the specific situation investigated here: first I must

decide who has moral standing, and second how to adjudicate amongst those with

moral standing. Moral standing under the land ethic is attributed to the land and


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all features of it. Therefore the farmers, the soil, any nearby bodies of water,

and all of the organisms which live in or on the soil (plants, animals, and

microorganisms) have moral standing in relation to the farmers. Therefore the

farmers as moral agents must consider all of the above as moral patients.

The formula for adjudication is in the paragraph quoted above. The tillage and

cropping practices perpetrated by the farmers clearly fall in the "tends otherwise"

category. Both of the above practices contribute to soil erosion and pollution of

the surrounding bodies of water as described in the preceding paragraphs and

clearly detract from the diversity, stability, integrity and beauty of the land.

Clearly Leopold's ethic shows that these farmers are not only contravening his

ethic by both their tilling and cropping methods, but that they should also practice

more traditional farming in other areas:

The discontent that labels itself 'organic farming,'..., is [nevertheless] biotic in its

direction, particularly in its insistence on the importance of soil flora and fauna

(Leopold p81).

In this case to recognize the importance of soil flora and fauna means to use

natural fertilization and pest control. Artificial fertilizer and pesticides (and

herbicides) both undermine or ignore the importance of natural processes, and


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both utterly destroy the natural processes carried out by soil flora and fauna (for

more details on flora and fauna of the soil see Alan Wild ch 1-4).

In this study I have made little mention of the organism which subsist on the soil,

this is due partly to the lack of information provided in source materials but also

because of the lack of necessity, given my chosen theory the land ethic. Given the

fact that the soil is the base of most terrestrial food chains it is not necessary to

itemize the various organisms which are dependent on it either directly or

indirectly (by being higher on the food chain). If the health of the soil itself is

deteriorating it is a simple matter of inference to establish that all that are

dependent on the soil (higher in the food chain) will suffer in health also. All of

the individual organisms within each group will not necessarily suffer, but the

diversity and stability of each group will surely suffer as a result of a less diverse

and stable base (i.e. the soil).

On the other hand if my chosen theory was Singer's rights based ethic it would be

necessary to determine which beings, who are subjects of a life, are damaged by

these farming practices. With Leopold's land ethic I need not consider the

individual, in fact I am compelled to consider only the community. With Leopold's

ethic the individual is morally neutral, only the species or the community are

considered to have moral standing. The individuals are only important in that they


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collectively represent the community/species.

J.Baird Callicott's article, "Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair" in People,

Penguins, and Plastic Trees, edited by Donald VanDeveer and Christine Pierce,

draws his readers into discussion of the community versus the individual, as

mentioned above, with reference to Leopold's definition of moral value:

What is especially noteworthy, and that to which attention should be directed in

this proposition, is the idea that the good of the biotic communityis the ultimate

measure of the moral value,..., of actions (Callicott p188 his italics).

Callicott's interpretation is much like my own, in fact to Callicott the above "moral

imperative" implies the necessityto kill certain individuals in some circumstances

where the good of the biotic community is at stake (Callicott p188). This

interpretation of Leopold's moral imperative, to kill individuals in some

circumstances, is the object of attack for Tom Regan in his article, "The Rights

View", contained within the same source book as Callicott's article. In his article

Regan describes an example of how this moral imperative can lead to a moral

quandary:

If,..., the situation we faced was either to kill a rare wildflower or a (plentiful)

human being, and if the wildflower, as a "team member," would contribute more to


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"the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community" than the human, then

presumably we would not be doing wrong if we killed the human and saved the

wildflower (Regan p 205).

Regan has a good point here, nothing in Leopold theory establishes killing

individuals as immoral in reference to this type of situation. Perhaps Regan is

being a little unfair here, only Callicott mentions killing specifically as a mode of

preserving the biotic community. What exactly Leopold had in mind is of course

debateable. Although Regan can be said to be criticizing Callicott more than

Leopold he does get at the heart of the issue in displaying how the land ethic is

contrary to individualistic rights. The primary flaw of the land ethic is its utter

disregard for the individual. In a culture and society where atomistic based rights

are fundamental, the land ethic must fight an uphill battle to gain acceptance. This

battle between communal and individual interests could hardly be said to be new.

Much of the conflicts of our society are steeped in the age-old historical and on-

going battle between the rights of the individual and the rights or integrity of

society as a whole. Freedom of speech, the right to self-determination, and

freedom of movement: these individual rights have been impinged on, restricted,

and completely revoked by the governing bodies of western societies over and over


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again in the interests of society as a whole. The individuals of a society can not all

be free to have all of their liberties fulfilled. Conflicts do occur between

individuals, and between the society and the individual, in the interests of society

certain liberties must be denied.

Is it possible that the value of the whole is more than the some of its parts

(Callicott p190)? Alternatively, is it possible that the value of all of the parts

equal the sum of the whole? Consider how throughout the last 800 years of

western societal evolution, we have synthesized a legal and moral system which

satisfies both individual and communal needs. The dialectic between the thesis

(community integrity & stability) and the antithesis (individual self-determination)

have interacted in such a way as to yield the synthesis our present societal

structure. If we can have a stable society with the dualist ethical dialectic

between the individual and the community in the human realm,


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perhaps the next dialectical interaction will be the interaction between a single

species on the globe (Homo Sapiens) and all parts of the global ecosystem and the

synthesis might look very much like todays western society. The individuals in this

far-off synthesis would be species like humans, maple trees and zebra-mussels and

the community of this synthesis would be the world and all that it contains. The

dialectical process has already begun atomistic theorists like Regan and Singer are

debating environmental ethics with holistic theorists like Callicott (Leopold's

bulldog) and Arne Naess. Perhaps theorists like Taylor will become more common,

theories which combine the individuals interests with the interests of beings who

are not considered individuals into one ethical theory. Eventually Regan's

predictions about atomistic theories may well come true:

The implications of the successful development of a rights-based environmental

ethic, one that made the case that individual inanimate natural objects (e.g., this

redwood) have inherent value and a basic moral right to treatment respectful of

that value, should be welcomed by [holistic] environmentalist (Regan p205).

Regan makes a good case in his article for rights based environmental theories,

they are serious contenders with holistic theories for adequate ethical value of

the global ecosystem.


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How can rights theorists deal with the value of inanimate objects such as rivers

and soils though? Some rights theorist might try to transform our view of

inanimate objects like rivers and soil by concentrating on the organic component of

these features of nature. For example a river and indeed any body of water is

never found in nature as simply a group of molecules consisting of two hydrogen

atoms for every one oxygen, there always exists a living element. The oceans could

be said to be a symbiosis of inanimate water and animate plankton, each dependent

upon one another. The water is dependent on the plankton to perpetrate itself as

plankton emits oxygen as a waste product, while the plankton are dependent on the

water for a hospitable environment in which to subsist.

There are fundamental problems with this sort of analysis, how can something

which is not considered alive be involved in a process which requires two or more

living entities (i.e. symbiosis)? Despite these fundamental problems some rights

theorists might be able to eventually develop a relatively good argument, but it

would not likely be as good as an ethical theory based on holism would be, nor would

it be especially efficient. To much detail, to much searching and reaching can

really stretch a theory to its limits. If it is true that our goal is to contain all that

we believe to be valuable in the world within an ethical theory that establishes a

relevant and justifiable ethic that we can live with, we must do all we can to attain


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this goal and to attain it as soon as possible (given current ecological crises). To

reach this goal we should be efficient and reasonable. To be both efficient and

reasonable we must use tools which can plausibly achieve these goals in an efficient

and reasonable way. It does not make sense to use atomistic theories, like rights

based theories, to establish moral value for entities that can not be considered

individuals in any reasonable way (eg. rivers, mountains, soil). It makes even less

sense to use a holistic theory to establish the moral standing of individuals (this

goal might actually be impossible to attain). In a perfect society the solution could

be for both groups of theorists to work in their respective realms with frequent

interaction, eventually coming up with ethics that are clear and understandable and

applicable in a symbiotic format. Once this is accomplished the most difficult task

would be to combine the theories so that there is a balance between the individual

and communal realm.

In the real world however atomistic and holistic theorists will battle ad nauseam

for supremacy over the ethical realm. Things will become accomplished, a

synthesis will eventually emerge. Perhaps the dialectic will live up to its name and

the synthesis will be extremely complex and intricate, almost alive with the

interaction of ideas. Perhaps the dialectic of individual and community will bring us

a synthesis on scale with natural evolution, starting out "low and squat" and link


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after link synthesis after synthesis the "height and complexity" will increase

(Leopold p78). Our society would become broader and more diverse eventually

including the entire earth under its moral umbrella, finally attaining justice and

liberty for all.

As I have shown in this essay neither the atomistic not the holistic ethical

theories can answer all of our questions and fulfill all our needs. Perhaps with time

the dialectical process will approach both qualitatively and quantitatively the

diversity of the natural evolutionary process. As humanity approaches in

complexity of thought that which nature has attained in sheer complexity of form,

we will feel more a part of, and at once become more accepting of nature. In this

we will truly and finally break free from our conqueror role with nature that

Leopold described in such an insightful way.

WORKS CITED

Smithers, J. and B. Smit. Conservation Practices In

Southwestern Ontario Agriculture: Barriers To Adoption. Guelph: University

School of Rural Planning and Development, Universty of Guelph, 1989.

Wild, Alan. Soils And The Environment: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge

U.P., 1993.

VanDeveer, D. and Pierce, C. People, Penguins, and Plastic Trees. Oxford: Oxford

Press, 1989.

land ethics

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