Aldo Leopold was an American author who believed that our well-being, or the well-being of all people was tied to the environment. He created today’s idea of community to enlarge it to sentient and non-sentient beings other than us people, to include water, soil, animals and all plants.
His most famous book is A Sand County Almanac.
His most well-known idea from the book on land ethics is such: “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.”
The first issue of the book included published essays that Leopold had been submitting to popular hunting and conservation magazines, along with more philosophical essays.
To get youngsters writing, and in the spirit of Leopold, entries are now being accepted for the Aldo Leopold Writing Contest featuring several $500 awards and open to students in grades 6 to 12 throughout the State of New Mexico.
In the essay students should tell a story about a local leader and in it reflect on Leopold’s ethics to the land. Local can be interpreted to be the entire southwest United States. And students can buy the book online or find it in bookstores for inspiration. The contest is open to kids in public, private and homeschool systems. But a teacher must sponsor the submission.
Younger students can submit shorter essays, and on them the writer’s name must not be identified so they can be judged anonymously. Of course while it is easy to buy cheap essays online, no forms of plagiarism will be expected. Buying essays is okay for use on commercial interest business websites, but not in creative submissions in this case.
