While Leopold's analogy of the biotic community as a moral community predominates in A Sand County Almanac, that of the land as an organism is found in other Leopold writings such as "Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest." Both these models have proved seminal in the subsequent development of environmental ethics, and the second, which is in some ways the more coherent, should not be forgotten.

      Leopold's vision in "The Land Ethic" chapter of the Almanac is best captured by studying that work as a whole. Read beyond the theoretical passages (mandatory for mainstream academic purposes) to the tableaux of nature and of the seasons which Leopold conjures up. Thoreau-like in prose, Leopold the field worker illuminates the relations and points of view of wild creatures; and against this background his visionary plea for a "land ethic" secures a hearing, if not complete conviction.

      Leopold's call for an extension of our perceptions of the moral community has opened the eyes of many. There is, certainly, a large difference between a community whose members are conscious of mutual obligations and a community in the quite different sense employed in biology, where contributions to the community are involuntary and largely unconscious. But as J. Baird Callicott has pointed out, there is no need to ascribe obligations to all members of the biotic community for commitment to the view that most human beings have obligations with regard to the other members.

      Leopold was a shrewed interpreter of history as well as of the natural world. In particular, he remarked how the biblical prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah asserted that the despoliation of land was not only inexpedient but also wrong. He detects in Ezekiel an ethic of stewardship, and an interpretation of humankind's dominion over nature as entailing the responsibility of passing on the earth to the future the better for our tenure. I welcome Leopold's testimony to the depth of Judaeo-Chris tian tradition in the matter of regard for the land. But I would contest his view that this regard has been harbored by individuals only, and never until recently by whole societies.

      In guiding decisions on natural resource management, the land ethic has undeniably generated new, holistic approaches to forestry and wildlife management, wisely stressing the integrity of systems ahead of maximizing the harvest to be had from them. It is unlikely to be of much help with the international distribution of resources such as water or energy, having little to say on inter-human issues of equity, or with intergenerational resource issues such as carbon emission quotas. Neve rtheless, Leopold well questions the assumptions that resources exist simply for human use, let alone for human consumption, and effectively questions the assumption that the planetary nonhuman realm comprises simply resources in the first place. This qu estioning of the nature of resources is arguably of greater value than supplying algorithms for their deployment.

      Nevertheless, Leopold the philosopher is something of a disaster. If all ethics rests on relations of interdependence, as Leopold claims, how are obligations as much as possible to those on whom we are not dependent, such as infants and small children? And how can obligations "have no meaning without conscience," which would make the notion of conscience more basic than that of obligation, even though the notion of conscience actually concerns beliefs about matters such as obligation, and is thus itself dependent on the notion of obligation? Can no one have obligations until they are aware of them? What hope does this suggestion leave that people, corporations and countries oblivious of environmental responsibilities can be persuaded to recognize the obligations which they currently neglect?

      Similarly, when Leopold appears to deny that an action can be right or wrong simply through its impact on individuals, and claims instead that, "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," this should be recognized as a massive overstatement, to say the least. Otherwise, lying, murder, cheating and stealing become in most cases morally neutral, and sometimes actually right. Leopold does n ot present arguments in favor of this principle but instead relies on a beguiling narrative. At most, the scope of his principle has to be limited to wildlife management. But even wildlife management intersects with inter-human ethics, as when one manager contemplates murdering another whose impact on the biotic community he or she regards as misguided; and at once Leopold's principle becomes seriously misleading once more, for anyone rash enough to take it seriously.

      Robin Attfield is a professor, Philosophy Section, University of Wales, College of Cardiff and author of The Ethic of Environmental Concern (1983), and Environmental Philosophy: Principles and Prospects (1994).

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