Tending what's right

In his incomparable A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold wrote, as a foundation for the Land Ethic, "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." Although the intent behind those words seems clear, we recently came across an example of how challenging it can be to apply them to specific situations. The biotic community demonstrates that life is tenacious; practically ubiquitous on this earth; and occurs in places that seem quite inhospitable to life's existence.

what plant is this and how is it surviving?

Photo by J. Harrington

Can you identify any soil in the photo above? Anything one might normally consider a requirement for a seed to take hold, germinate and a plant to survive? We certainly couldn't. And, in fact, there were not one but three plants growing from the foundation of this building. Here's a view of two. The third is growing next to the grounding rod for the building.

and here's another surviving the same way

Photo by J. Harrington

We assume, based on the gray sealant, that the building's foundation is intended to be waterproof. We further assume that plant roots can create fissures in the sealant, grout and limestone(?) that comprises the foundation. These plants are growing but a narrow walkway away from a frequently mown lawn. We guess that whoever mows the lawn doesn't have a job description that also involves pulling plants (we don't know what they are) from the foundation.

So, we ask you, should those plants be allowed to stay? Should they be transplanted? Which of those options, or some other action, "tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community." How does one most appropriately integrate the law of unintended consequences with a Land Ethic? Perhaps it's once again time to reread A Sand County Almanac and then follow it with a rereading of Donella Meadows Dancing with Systems. But, perhaps we should defer until our current spell of hot, humid weather has ended. We seem to be even more prickly and nettlesome than usual. Then again, maybe it's the disgusting increase in political commercials we're being subjected to these days.

Darwin’s Bestiary

By Philip Appleman

PROLOGUE

Animals tame and animals feral

prowled the Dark Ages in search of a moral:

the canine was Loyal, the lion was Virile,

rabbits were Potent and gryphons were Sterile.

Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Pride—every peril

was fleshed into something phantasmic and rural,

while Courage, Devotion, Thrift—every bright laurel

crowned a creature in some mythological mural.

Scientists think there is something immoral

in singular brutes having meat that is plural:

beasts are mere beasts, just as flowers are floral.

Yet between the lines there’s an implicit demurral;

the habit stays with us, albeit it’s puerile:

when Darwin saw squirrels, he saw more than Squirrel.

1. THE ANT

The ant, Darwin reminded us,

defies all simple-mindedness:

Take nothing (says the ant) on faith,

and never trust a simple truth.

The PR men of bestiaries

eulogized for centuries

this busy little paragon,

nature’s proletarian—

but look here, Darwin said: some ants

make slaves of smaller ants, and end

exploiting in their peonages

the sweating brows of their tiny drudges.

Thus the ant speaks out of both

sides of its mealy little mouth:

its example is extolled

to the workers of the world,

but its habits also preach

the virtues of the idle rich.

2. THE WORM

Eyeless in Gaza, earless in Britain,

lower than a rattlesnake’s belly-button,

deaf as a judge and dumb as an audit:

nobody gave the worm much credit

till Darwin looked a little closer

at this spaghetti-torsoed loser.

Look, he said, a worm can feel

and taste and touch and learn and smell;

and ounce for ounce, they’re tough as wrestlers,

and love can turn them into hustlers,

and as to work, their labors are mythic,

small devotees of the Protestant Ethic:

they’ll go anywhere, to mountains or grassland,

south to the rain forests, north to Iceland,

fifty thousand to every acre

guzzling earth like a drunk on liquor,

churning the soil and making it fertile,

earning the thanks of every mortal:

proud Homo sapiens,with legs and arms—

his whole existence depends on worms.

So, History, no longer let

the worm’s be an ignoble lot

unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

Moral: even a worm can turn.

3. THE RABBIT

a.   Except in distress, the rabbit is silent,

      but social as teacups: no hare is an island.

            (Moral:

            silence is golden—or anyway harmless;

            rabbits may run, but never for Congress.)

b.   When a rabbit gets miffed, he bounds in an orbit,

      kicking and scratching like—well, like a rabbit.

            (Moral:

            to thine own self be true—or as true as you can;

            a wolf in sheep’s clothing fleeces his skin.)

c.   He populates prairies and mountains and moors,

      but in Sweden the rabbit can’t live out of doors.

            (Moral:

      to know your own strength, take a tug at your shackles;

            to understand purity, ponder your freckles.)

d.   Survival developed these small furry tutors;

      the morals of rabbits outnumber their litters.

            (Conclusion:

            you needn’t be brainy, benign, or bizarre

            to be thought a great prophet. Endure. Just endure.)

4. THE GOSSAMER

Sixty miles from land the gentle trades

that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay

sift a million gossamers, like tides

of fluff above the menace of the sea.

These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing

and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean;

the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging,

small aeronauts on some elusive mission.

The Megatherium, done to extinction

by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint

to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson:

for survival, it’s the little things that count.

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