Wetlands advocates fused ecosystem ecology with Leopold’s anti-anthropocentric land ethic

Evidence

In one passage from the Museum of Natural History booklet, the ecology of Odum joined the philosophy of Leopold and Errington: “Perhaps one reason man often sees the salt marsh as useless land is that he sees no human activity in the marsh – no houses, no parks, no roads – only the occasional hunter. The marsh needs no human help. It plants, harvests, and fertilizes itself. Man is an extra and so far he has been able to do little but destroy. It is hard for man to realize he is unnecessary and unwanted. Perhaps the psychological message of the salt marsh is as important as the biological. It says man is not the center of nature.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 660

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the earlier claims ‘The ecological argument had broad appeal’ and the ch4/ch5 conservation-to-environmentalism thread connecting land ethic to built-environment policy. — connects to: Aldo Leopold’s writing reframed marshes as sites of profound wilderness value. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 648; Postwar land-use activism uniquely grounded protection in ecological process arguments — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 718

Broader Connections

• Postwar land-use activism uniquely grounded protection in ecological process arguments #corroborates (0.72) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 718