What We're Reading
Marybeth
Lorbiecki,
Aldo Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire
 Reviewed
by
David H. Stones
University Registrar
One
of my favorite reading techniques is to match the location
of an approaching meeting with a book about the region. James
Michener's books are especially appealing, and Chesapeake,
Centennial, Hawaii, and Texas were
chosen for trips to Baltimore, Denver, Honolulu, and Dallas.
My family, Boy Scout, and school outings to the desert Southwest
have been enriched by many pertinent books. Edward Abbey's
Desert Solitaire was interesting and hilarious. Wallace
Stegner's Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell
and the Second Opening of the West talks not only of
Powell's exploration of the Grand Canyon, but also the initial
charting of the vast Colorado Plateau and some incredibly
accurate observations on the arid areas of the Western U.S.
Stegner also describes why laws and practices carried from
the Eastern U.S. could not possibly be applied with success.
The Philosopher's
Rock at Barton Springs pays tribute to Austin's mid-20th century
trio of Walter Prescott Webb, Roy Bedichek, and Southwestern
University graduate J. Frank Dobie. When knee or shoulder
surgery interrupted my noon running or walking exercise, I
made an effort to read the works of all three. Webb's Texas
Rangers was very detailed and interesting, but his main
work was The Great Plains. His conclusions were compelling,
and very close to Powell's – just 70 years later. Bedichek's
Adventures with a Texas Naturalist is a series of
short chapters, but fascinating to one interested in environmental
issues, including midget oak trees in the West Texas sand
dunes, the function of hackberry trees, and the importance
of the fallen tree to the flora and fauna. Dobie was most
entertaining with stories of characters and events of the
West, from cattleman Frank Chisholm to Ben Lilly, who traveled
from Louisiana to Big Bend to the Gila hunting mountain lions
– usually with a knife.
Southwestern University supports a program called Destination
Service, which offers a variety of Spring Break service trips
to students. The last five years, I have had the immense pleasure
of accompanying different busloads of SU students to the Gila
Wilderness Area in the mountains of New Mexico near the Arizona
border. We camp at 6-7,000 feet and we build and maintain
hiking and horseback trails for the U.S. Forest Service. Since
this is a wilderness area (the first in the U.S.) we use primitive
firefighting tools for this work. Although I had backpacked
in the Gila while in graduate school, I wanted to be educated
for my first SU Gila trip. The Gila Wilderness Area: A
Hiking Guide, by John A. Murray, gave me a general overview
of the geographical and historical aspects of the Gila. This
induced me to read Marybeth Lorbiecki's Aldo
Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire. I was surprised
by my ignorance of his story, but not by the fact that my
parents had several of Leopold's books. Perhaps they were
smarter than I'd realized.
As a young man, Aldo Leopold found himself working as a Forest
Ranger/Game Warden in the Gila area. This is very rough country
in the Mogollon Mountains and the headwaters of the Gila River.
It is now home to Cliff Dwellings National Monument (of the
Mogollan culture, contemporary to the Anasazi of northern
New Mexico), and was the hideout of Geronimo and the Mescalero
Apache. Over time, Leopold evolved from a killer of predators
to an advocate for their preservation as a necessity for the
deer population. He did so following careful observation and
reflection. He further advocated the setting aside of areas
of wilderness before they could become changed by settlement.
I keep returning to one passage, which goes thus:
| One
particular afternoon, Leopold and another crew member
spotted a wolf and her pups crossing the river. They shot
into the pack and then scrambled down the rocks to see
what they had done. One pup was crippled and trying to
crawl away. The old mother wolf lay snapping and growling.
Aldo baited her with his rifle, and the wolf lunged at
him, snatching it in her teeth. The men backed away, but
kept their eyes on her, watching her die. Many years later,
Leopold wrote: "We reached the old wolf in time to
watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized
then, and have known ever since, that there was something
new to me in those eyes – something known only to
her and to the mountain." The scene haunted Aldo,
though he couldn't figure out why. It took him a long
time to understand the implications of what he had done. |
Leopold helped form a set of local preservation societies. These
later merged to form the New Mexico Game Protective Association.
Interested in nature and wildlife, he also tirelessly wrote
newsletters (including "The Pine Cone") and letters
to politicians, and gave speeches to increase public awareness.
He was rewarded! In 1924, 755,000 acres were set aside as the
Gila Wilderness. A large adjoining area just to the east was
later allocated, named the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Area.
Leopold didn't stop there. He wrote Game Management,
thought to be a definitive text. Another piece was the first
Forest Service manual on erosion control, The Watershed
Handbook. He later took his talents to the Midwest, where
he practiced more detailed observation of wildlife, plants,
and environmental conditions over time (as reported in his Sand
County Almanac, considered by some to be "the environmentalist's
Bible"). He also established, at the University of Wisconsin,
the first academic program in ecology. He served on numerous
state, national, and international committees and commissions.
He preached preservation and the importance of all parts of
an ecosystem – regardless of whether man fully realized
the importance of all the pieces.
I was surprised to see so much in common between the works of
Bedichek, Powell, Webb, and Leopold. Dobie, too: the Gila Wilderness
boasts a campsite named after Ben Lilly.
Every environmental studies student should know Leopold's story
well. All of us would benefit from more individuals reading
about him. Aldo Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire provides
ample evidence that, given dedication and time, one person can
indeed make a significant difference. I need to get busy!
What We're Reading
features reviews by members of the Southwestern University
community. Some reviews were previously published in the Library's
annual Summer Reading List.
Read
more reviews.
What
We're Reading is a regular
feature of the A.
Frank Smith, Jr. Library Center. |
