On June 27, 2005 the first in the Association's Arthur M. Crocker seminar series at the Association's Center featured Carl Leopold, son of the late Aldo Leopold who was the father of modern ecology and author of A Sand County Almanac. Carl Leopold is emeritus scientist at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, and a founding director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation (ALF). He was joined by the Foundation's Executive Director Buddy Huffaker for an evening and morning dialogue with the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks.

Arthur M. Crocker is the late Adirondack conservationist, Association board leader and philanthropist from 1964 until his death in January, 2005.

Carl Leopold:

Carl Leopold addressed the Association this way: "The drift away from the natural world concerns me greatly. Being alive means being dependent on the air, water, fisheries, farms. It means being aware of our biology. We have become alienated from nature, driven by monetary concerns only. How do we reach our children," he asked? Then he answered: "Don't lecture them, help them get in contact with nature. For you in the Adirondacks, you are starting with such beautiful terrain to do this."

Buddy Huffaker:

The Leopold Foundation's Buddy Huffaker said: "We are a legacy center. We focus not on biological knowledge but on a package of experience that is highly personal and invested in the future on this planet. More and more people are coming to us to touch that wellspring of inspiration."

The Shack:

The Shack in northern Wisconsin is an old chicken coop and surrounding acreage that Aldo Leopold acquired and, with his family, worked to restore to health before the mid-20th century. Much as the Association has restored the home of Paul Schaefer and family as a vitally significant conservation homestead with direct ties to the Adirondack and national wilderness movements, the Aldo Leopold Foundation is beginning work to restore the Shack in Baraboo, Wisconsin. This is where the Leopold family carried out in practice the land ethic that Leopold wrote so eloquently about in A Sand County Almanac, work that inspired Leopold's ecological observations, lessons and writing which has, in turn, greatly influenced people's attitudes and practices around the world.

As Aldo Leopold wrote,

"The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

"In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members and also respect for the community as such."

During our seminar, Carl Leopold showed slides of the Shack and the landscape around it. He described in simple words the pleasure and the grounding he received in working the land in one of this nation's first purposeful projects in ecological restoration.

The Aldo Leopold Foundation has announced a campaign to fulfill the promise of Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic: harmony between people and the land, meaning the ecological community of soil, water, plants, and animals to which we belong. The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks wishes to be involved in this campaign from our Center and from bases in and around New York's Adirondack Park. We will continue to explore every opportunity to partner with the ALF. Paul Schaefer, a foremost protector of the Adirondacks in the 20th century and spokesman for the Adirondack wilderness, would be cheering our two organizations on.