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Aldo Leopold’s Land Health from a Resilience Point of View: Self-renewal Capacity of Social–Ecological Systems

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Abstract

Health approaches to ecology have a strong basis in Aldo Leopold’s thinking, and contemporary ecohealth in turn has a strong philosophical basis in Leopold. To commemorate the 125th anniversary of Leopold’s birth (1887–1948), we revisit his ideas, specifically the notions of stewardship (land ethic), productive use of ecosystems (land), and ecosystem renewal. We focus on Leopold’s perspective on the self-renewal capacity of the land, as understood in terms of integrity and land health, from the contemporary perspective of resilience theory and ecological theory more generally. Using a broad range of literature, we explore insights and implications of Leopold’s work for today’s human–environment relationships (integrated social–ecological systems), concerns for biodiversity, the development of agency with respect to stewardship, and key challenges of his time and of ours. Leopold’s seminal concept of land health can be seen as a triangulation of productive use, self-renewal, and stewardship, and it can be reinterpreted through the resilience lens as the health of social–ecological systems. In contemporary language, this involves the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and the ability to exercise agency both for conservation and for environmental justice.

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Acknowledgments

We thank two anonymous referees and the editor for helpful comments, and Helmut Geist for the original idea to write on Leopold and resilience. Fikret Berkes’ work has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canada Research Chairs program http://www.chairs.gc.ca). Nancy Doubleday’s work is supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the HOPE Chair in Peace and Health, and McMaster University. Graeme Cumming’s involvement in this paper was supported by the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, the National Research Foundation of South Africa, and the University of Cape Town.

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Berkes, F., Doubleday, N.C. & Cumming, G.S. Aldo Leopold’s Land Health from a Resilience Point of View: Self-renewal Capacity of Social–Ecological Systems. EcoHealth 9, 278–287 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-012-0796-0

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