Where Ethics Meet Earth

When author Jeffrey Ryan set out to write a book about Aldo Leopold and the other founders of The Wilderness Society, his journey unexpectedly led him back to the 1830s where he discovered the tale of a failed writer and fruit farmer who would go on to become the most prominent advocate for public lands of his generation.  

Ryan came to see that the arc of America’s conservation movement from the establishment of Yosemite as a park in 1864 to the signing of The Wilderness Act in 1965 hinged on two generational “baton passes”—both requiring the most prominent leaders of the cause to entrust the growth and refinement of public spaces on the very people they hired. Of special interest to Ryan is how the philosophical, physical and emotional needs for protected lands played a central role in their creation and protection—even at a time when the scale of our forests, rivers, prairies and forests seemed inexhaustible and opposition seemed insurmountable. The consensus building skills of those who advocated for public lands and overcame innumerable setbacks are especially worth revisiting as we navigate another period of uncertain destiny. 

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Richard (Dick) and his wife, Kim, co-own the Cates Family Farm LLC in Wyoming Township, Iowa County, with their son Eric and his wife, Kiley, and their daughter Shannon and her husband, Dan. Dick is a life-long farmer who grew up working on his family’s beef cow-calf farm, a neighbor’s dairy farm, Montana ranches, and in large-scale dairy forage and grain crop production overseas.

Dick pursued professional studies in soil science and agronomy and earned an MS (1979) in soils from Montana State University and a PhD (1983) in soils and plant health from the University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences while serving a Leopold Fellowship. Dick began taking over the family farm management in 1987 and then, along with Kim, purchased a portion of the land to build their own farming business. 

Dick and his family are members of the Iowa County Uplands Farmer-Led Watershed Project and the Lowery Creek Watershed Initiative, where they share information about and demonstrate conservation practices with other landowners and the public.

The Cates family has been recognized for their soil and water conservation work, receiving many awards including their most cherished recognition of receiving the 2013 Sand County Foundation Wisconsin Leopold Conservation Award.

Dick authored the book Voices from the Heart of the Land: Rural Stories That Inspire Community (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), a children’s book An Adventure on Sterna’s Hill (2019), and A Creek Runs Through This Driftless Land: A Farm Family’s Journey Toward a Land Ethic (Little Creek Press, 2024).

Eric and Kiley manage the family farm now, with a “A Commitment to Conservation.”

How do we nurture the wild world in these trying times? How might our relationships—with nature, land, wild beings and humanity—deepen and converge? As policy and partisanship stress conservation ethics, now is the most critical time for us to speak with passion and purpose towards the essential mission of a land ethic. In this interactive session with J. Drew Lanham and Krissy Kludt, co-directors of Writing the Wild, we'll conjure words and phrases from head and heart to embolden the work of land conservation and environmental stewardship. Bring your pen and paper, or keypad and screen, and prepare to get soul-deep in the sacred work of nurturing our relationships with the Earth.

This event is for current donors. If you’d like to attend, a gift of $25 or more unlocks access to this special event—and helps us grow the Land Ethic movement far into the future.  

If you have already made a gift to our Spring 2025 Endowment Campaign, a link to this event will automatically be sent to you via email.

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Joe Lamp’l is the creator and host of The joe gardener® Show podcast and founder of  joegardener.com and the joegardener® Online Gardening Academy™. He’s also the creator, host, and executive producer of the Emmy-winning national public television series Growing a Greener World®, now available on YouTube.

A longtime advocate for organic gardening and ecological stewardship, Joe has shared his expertise as the host of Fresh from the Garden on DIY Network and as an on-air contributor for The Today Show, Good Morning America, and The Weather Channel. His work has earned numerous accolades, including the American Horticultural Society’s B.Y. Morrison Communication Award for outstanding and inspirational garden education across multiple platforms.

Joe’s latest book, The Vegetable Gardening Book, offers a practical, comprehensive guide to growing food successfully—whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned gardener. Through his podcasts, courses, and extensive online resources, Joe continues to educate and inspire a new generation of gardeners.

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“Only those who love trees should cut them,” writes forester and author Ethan Tapper. Tapper is a forester, birder, naturalist and popular digital creator, and the bestselling author of How to Love a Forest. He has been recognized as a thought-leader and a disruptor in the forestry and conservation community of the northeastern United States and beyond, winning multiple regional and national awards for his work. In How to Love a Forest, he asks what it means to live during a time in which ecosystems are in retreat and extinctions rattle the bones of the earth. How do we use our species' incredible power to heal rather than to harm?

Joining Ethan in a discussion, Mike Chaveas is the Forest Supervisor of the Hoosier National Forest—205,000-acres of rolling forested hills of south-central Indiana. Mike will share his firsthand experience with oak-hickory restoration and explore the values and mindsets involved with land stewardship efforts in this public/private intersection. A significant slice of his work managing the forested lands involves working with communities and partner organizations to develop a shared vision of stewardship focused on restoring, maintaining, and interpreting the cultural and natural resources of the Hoosier.

Tapper says that the actions we must take to protect ecosystems are often counterintuitive, uncomfortable, and even heartbreaking. He will show how bittersweet acts—like loving deer and hunting them, loving trees and felling them—can be expressions of compassion.

Join us April 10 to listen as Tapper and Chaveas explore a land ethic in action for a modern, thriving natural world.

The nationally recognized Certificate of Interpretive Guiding (CIG) program is designed for anyone wanting to learn more about developing and leading interpretive programs. This course will introduce you to the history, definitions, and principles of interpretation. During the course, you will develop a program outline and deliver a 10-minute thematic presentation, all with the support of your instructor(s) and fellow participants. You will learn how to make your programs purposeful, enjoyable, relevant, organized, and thematic, and leave ready to facilitate meaningful experiences that inspire engagement with the world around us.

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The Interpretive Guide Training is from Monday, June 23 to Friday, June 27. See the registration website.

Join us for Leopold Week!

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Margaret Renkl

Author of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss, and Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South

Camille Dungy

Author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, and four collections of poetry, including Trophic Cascade, plus the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History

Amy Tan

Author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Saving Fish from Drowning, and The Valley of Amazement, all New York Times bestsellers.

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Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at the  Atlantic, where she covers climate change. She is the author of The Light Eaters, a New York Times bestselling book about plant behavior and intelligence research, published by HarperCollins. The Light Eaters is a New York Times bestseller dubbed a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom. It is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence.