{"id":8039,"date":"2024-03-12T13:58:17","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T17:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/?p=8039"},"modified":"2024-03-12T13:59:21","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T17:59:21","slug":"aldo-leopold-founding-father-of-american-conservation-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/programs\/aldo-leopold-founding-father-of-american-conservation-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Aldo Leopold:  Founding Father of American Conservation Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><strong>Article in the 3\/12\/24 Mercer County Community College&#8217;s student newspaper The Voice (see insert); article reprinted here in full by permission of <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">author Annette Loveless<\/span>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-the-college-voice wp-block-embed-the-college-voice\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"4MY5R71Sbn\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcccvoice.org\/aldo-leopold\/\">Founding father of American conservation movement, Aldo Leopold, left a legacy of preservation in Lawrenceville, NJ<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Founding father of American conservation movement, Aldo Leopold, left a legacy of preservation in Lawrenceville, NJ&#8221; &#8212; The College VOICE\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcccvoice.org\/aldo-leopold\/embed\/#?secret=WTD3o45x2q#?secret=4MY5R71Sbn\" data-secret=\"4MY5R71Sbn\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Daniel Druckenbrod, professor of Environmental Sciences at Rider University, can predict the future. He also loves to take long walks in the woods.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen I\u2019m walking in the woods, I\u2019m reading a story written in the forest. I notice the size of the trees, the species, and how those sizes and species are distributed. The structure of the forest tells me the story of how it started a century or more ago,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Druckenbrod, who did postdoctoral work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and left a tenured track position in Virginia to teach at Rider, can predict the future. He uses tree rings, computer models, historical documents, and geographic information systems (GIS) to study how forests and their environments change over decades to centuries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe understory (the lower layer of the forest) tells me the current conditions and the stressors on the forest that influence the future forest. The future forests of Lawrence are experiencing the same stressors that are a concern up and down the East Coast\u2013invasive species, an overabundance of deer, urbanization. The saplings that survive tell me what the future of the forest will look like,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur environment has always gone through natural changes before, but not at the rate and extent that we are seeing now because of human impact,\u201d says Dr. Druckenbrod, adding, \u201cMy primary responsibility as a professor is to give my students the skills and knowledge to be aware of nature, to be informed citizens who can become part of land management and sustainable ecology across the globe.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mcccvoice.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/aldo-leopold-and-sand-county-almanac.png?resize=834%2C1020&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13802\" style=\"width:412px;height:auto\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Aldo Leopold (top), American conservationist and founding father of the environmental movement. A Sand County Almanac (above), Leopold\u2019s seminal essay collection first published in 1949.<\/em>&nbsp;Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>One source Dr. Druckenbrod leans on is the work of Aldo Leopold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI incorporate Leopold into the curriculum to give students a historical and ecological connection to our community,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aldo Leopold was an influential leader in environmental stewardship and the \u201cLand Ethics\u201d philosophy and lived in Lawrence Township while attending the Lawrenceville School from 1904 through 1905.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Dr. Steven Laubach, the Aldo Leopold Distinguished Teaching Chair and Director of Sustainability at the Lawrenceville School, \u201cLeopold\u2019s time in Lawrence Township was formative in developing his philosophy of land stewardship and wildlife management.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A prolific writer, Leopold\u2019s book&nbsp;<em>A Sand County Almanac<\/em>, published in 1949, is still read and discussed today in high schools, such as the Lawrenceville School, and universities, such as Rider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEvery student at the Lawrenceville School reads Leopold,\u201d says Dr. Laubach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>A Sand County Almanac<\/em>&nbsp;is a collection of essays, with the capstone essay \u201cThe Land Ethic,\u201d expanding ethics to include soils, plants, animals, water, and humans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Laubach explains, \u201cThis is a revolutionary shift in understanding the natural world, from a commodity to be exploited to an interconnected ecosystem where each part has inherent value on its own and each contributes to a sustainable \u2018biotic\u2019 whole\u2026a community to which we belong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leopold\u2019s path to becoming a fundamental figure in American environmentalism started at an early age. To understand what inspired Leopold\u2019s writing and conservation efforts, it helps to travel back to the time when his interests were formed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Druckenbrod says, \u201cWe are lucky that the Leopold family archived all of his letters from when he was a student at Lawrenceville.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are 175 known letters he wrote to his family during this time. \u201cHis letters home are replete with observations of the ecological community, the plants he saw, the animals, and their interactions,\u201d adds Dr. Druckenbrod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The letters tell us how \u201cLeopold would spend hours in the woods of Lawrence after class and on days off, including property on and just west of Rider University which Leopold called the Big Woods,\u201d says Dr. Laubach.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> The \u201cBig Woods\u201d is now preserved parkland that includes Lawrenceville\u2019s Central Park, the Johnson Trolley Line, and the Loveless Nature Preserve.&nbsp;<em>(Note: This preserve is named after the author\u2019s family who once lived and farmed here and in the Big Woods.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn my class,\u201d says Dr. Druckenbrod, \u201cI match my readings of Leopold, whether it be from&nbsp;<em>A Sand County Almanac<\/em>&nbsp;or his family letters, with the season if not the month when students and I are in the same woods. We\u2019ll soon read his letter where he recognizes the ephemeral Spring relationship between flies attracted to blooming skunk cabbages and the migrating phoebes that feed on those flies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m from North Jersey,\u201d says Rider University research assistant Therese Apuzzo, \u201cI didn\u2019t know who Aldo Leopold was until I got here. It\u2019s incredible to me that I\u2019m standing in the footsteps of such an important ecologist!\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Druckenbroad explains, \u201cLeopold is clear in his later writings that one\u2019s education should extend outside the classroom to the surrounding environment. This connection to the preserved historic and ecological community is motivation for the students of today to protect and restore the environment for the next century.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI like to think,\u201d says Apuzzo, \u201cthat I\u2019m continuing to monitor the forest for Leopold. I have technology that he didn\u2019t have at the time, like a gas exchange instrument that can help to measure the health and functioning of the forest. If he was monitoring these woods now, I think he would be looking at climate change impacts just like I am.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Around the turn of the century when Leopold was taking his tramps in the area, Mercer County was mostly agricultural land. According to an 1899 Report on Forests, only 11% of the county was forested, already illustrating the impact humans had on the \u201cbiota\u201d with deforestation and soil tillage.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today agricultural land is largely replaced by urban development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe sometimes overlook the services forests provide us for free, especially as we confront climate change, such as storing carbon and protecting biodiversity and the species that are adapted to inhabit these forests,\u201d says Dr. Druckenbrod.&nbsp;He adds, \u201cThese older forests are particularly important because they can\u2019t easily be replaced. There\u2019s research saying these forests are more resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a big hiker, I\u2019m no stranger to forests,\u201d says Apuzzo, \u201cbut spending all this time in this forest, monitoring what\u2019s happening like Leopold did before me, it\u2019s different now. I feel more deeply connected to any forest that I\u2019m in.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This article was produced as part of MCCC\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcccvoice.org\/j-lab\/\">Community Reporting \u201cJ Lab\u201d certificate program&nbsp;<\/a>made possible by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/njhumanities.org\/programs\/community-journalism\/\">grant funding from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and The New School: Journalism + Design<\/a>.<\/em>&nbsp;<em>To learn more about the J Lab program, contact Prof. Holly Johnson at johnsonh@mccc.edu.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article in the 3\/12\/24 Mercer County Community College&#8217;s student newspaper The Voice (see insert); article reprinted here in full by permission of author Annette Loveless. Dr. Daniel Druckenbrod, professor of Environmental Sciences at Rider University, can predict the future. He also loves to take long walks in the woods.&nbsp; \u201cWhen I\u2019m walking in the woods, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,48],"tags":[105,106,20],"class_list":["post-8039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programs","category-resources","tag-aldo-leopold","tag-american-conservation","tag-lawrenceville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8045,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8039\/revisions\/8045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}