Southwest
Leopold Conference
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The Aldo Leopold
Foundation
P.O.Box 77
Baraboo, WI 53913
608.355.0279
608.356.7309 fax
mail@aldoleopold.org
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February 13-14, 2009National Hispanic
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About the Conference
As the opening event in the Aldo Leopold Centennial Celebration 2009, this “cultural conversation” was intended to foster creative discussion about the Southwestern roots of Leopold’s land ethic, the roots of an environmental ethic in Hispanic and Native American traditions, and the historic and potential connections among them. The event welcomed participants from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and perspectives.
The program included keynote speaker Gary Paul Nabhan, a Lebanese-American scholar exploring the challenge of ethics in a time of global change, a look at the roots of a land ethic in the Southwest from Native American, Hispanic, and Leopold perspectives, and a series of four panel discussions on the following topics, each with panelists from varied cultural traditions and viewpoints.
The event was co-sponsored by the Aldo Leopold Foundation and the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Additional funding provided by the New Mexico Humanities Council through the We the People initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Humans and Nature, the University of New Mexico, and the U.S. Forest Service.
PANELS
The Local & the Global
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"Camino de Trampas," Ed Sandoval, 2007. |
Aldo Leopold composed his landmark essay “The Land Ethic” in the late 1940s, at a time when environmental concern was becoming global in scope. The land ethic has since helped to undergird an emerging global environmental ethic, even while emphasizing the need for revitalizing local connections to, and within, our landscapes. This panel will explore connections between local and global conservation challenges playing out in the Southwest and beyond.
Sustainability Across the Landscape
Sustainability aims to build healthy long-term relationships between people and land across cultural boundaries and landscapes, from wildlands to working lands to suburban and urban neighborhoods. Our landscapes are interconnected by food, water, energy, and complex community and economic ties. This panel will examine the challenges of sustainability.
Community Engagement
Over the last two decades, community-based approaches to environmental stewardship have taken root in settings from rural to urban. This movement has deep roots in Leopold’s own work on watershed health in the Southwest and Midwest. This panel will explore community-based projects and their contributions to the still-evolving land ethic.
Climate Change & Culture
With the reality of anthropogenic climate change now setting in, we face a cultural challenge unprecedented in human history. In his early work in the Southwest, Leopold had some inkling of these large-scale, long-term environmental changes. His land ethic now provides an essential part of the broader ethical foundation we must all create as a “thinking community.” This panel will address this great challenge from historical, scientific, and philosophical perspectives.
Continuing the Conversation
We feel that this conference uncovered many important paths for all of us to move forward. We hope that many of you who attended will stay engaged with us and with each other to continue the conversations we have started. We will make materials from the conference available here for you as we are able to pull them together. If there are other ways that we help you keep the conversation going, please let us know!
If you have questions or comments, please contact Jeannine Richards at jeannine@aldoleopold.org or 608.355.0279 ex. 25.