From press release

Renowned conservationist, philosopher and writer Aldo Leopold has come to be known as one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers. Leopold wrote the essays contained in his now infamous book, A Sand County Almanac, while restoring a worn-out Wisconsin farm to its natural habitat. In it, he examines humanity’s relationship to the natural world and clarifies what it means to live in harmony with the land.

In his final chapter, Leopold states that we need to “quit thinking about decent land use as solely an economic problem.” Essentially, Leopold believed the relationship between human beings and the natural world had to have a strong ethical basis, and he left us his Land Ethic as a starting point in developing our own sense of right and wrong in our interactions with nature.

Dr. Stanley A. Temple of the Aldo Leopold Foundation will explain how Leopold came to this view on ethics and why his ideas are still relevant in today’s world in his presentation titled “Aldo Leopold and The Oldest Task in Human History” at Winter Trails & Naturalist Tales, a University of Illinois Extension event to be held at Atwood Center, 2685 New Milford School Road, Rockford, Feb. 19.

Temple is the Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation in the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, and former chairman of the Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development Program in the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

For 32 years, Temple occupied the faculty position once held by Aldo Leopold, and while in that position, he received every University of Wisconsin teaching award for which he was eligible. Since his retirement from academia in 2007, he has been a senior fellow of the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

Temple’s career in conservation and ecology has been characterized by highly-respected scholarship in conservation biology and wildlife ecology, by interdisciplinary approaches to solving environmental problems, and by energetic contributions to the conservation movement at scales from local to global.

Winter Trails & Naturalist Tales is a daylong program organized through the University of Illinois Extension Master Naturalist Program and offers the public a unique opportunity to embrace winter’s beauty through outdoor exploration and indoor inspiration. Program fee is $25, which includes a hot lunch, two “Winter Trail” outdoor educational sessions and two “Naturalist Tales” keynote presentations.

For event details and to register, visit www.extension.illinois.edu/winnebago ^[1] or call (815) 986-4357.