A Sand County Almanac: Part IV: Wilderness Summary & Analysis

Leopold defines wilderness as the diverse “raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.” He attributes the diversity in cultures that have developed across the world to the great diversity of wildernesses. Wilderness was the enemy of the pioneer, something to be conquered, but for someone looking for leisure, wilderness is “something to be loved and cherished,” something that can give “definition and meaning” to a life.

Leopold explains that this chapter is a plea to preserve the last bits of wilderness left in the wake of industrialization and globalization—to protect them for the sake of the land and for the sake of humans who appreciate it.

Much of the American wilderness has already been destroyed. Leopold gives a list of wilderness areas that have been lost, but compares them to similar areas that could still be preserved. For example, the long-grass prairie is gone, but the short-grass prairie remains and could be saved. The “virgin pineries of the Lake States,” the “flatwoods of the coastal plain,” and the “giant hardwoods” are mostly gone, but similar hardwoods and swamps exist in other parts of America. Natural coastlines, unfortunately, have almost entirely disappeared, taken over by real estate, and Leopold admits there is little to be done to save them.

In the Rocky Mountains, many areas have been designated National Forests and National Parks. Leopold is especially interested in National Forests, because they are closed to roads, hotels, and other modern developments. He bemoans predator control, which clears apex predators out of a wilderness. This leads to too many deer or elk, which destroy the vegetation. Although human hunters could cull the herds, Leopold points out that more roads would then have to be built to give them access.

Leopold suggests that conflict between humans and animals is an essential part of human culture, and public wildernesses are a way for people to access this “virile and primitive” skill through hunting and fishing. Leopold thinks it is essential to keep these “primitive arts” alive. In his mind, these allow a kind of recreation, and Leopold believes recreation to be valuable because it is intense and different from workday life. 

Organisms are able to heal themselves. Humans have intervened in the health of their own species, and in the health of the land. Leopold judges human intervention on the land to be unsuccessful, as most human interventions have only made the land less healthy and less fertile than before.

Leopold complains that people are happy to treat only symptoms of larger environmental diseases—for instance, poisoning squirrels or mice without wondering why there are suddenly so many more of them and tracking the population explosion to the source. Leopold argues that conservation could help restore the health of the land, but admits that much of contemporary conservation is “local alleviations of biotic pain.” To remember what healthy land looks like, Leopold recommends looking to parts of northeastern Europe where the land was managed carefully, or else to the wilderness, which has managed to maintain itself for hundreds of thousands of years.

Healthy wilderness is valuable for its ability to be used as a comparison to sick wilderness, and as a tool to learn how to help landscapes destroyed by humans. 

Leopold is upset that National Parks, and even the surrounding National Forests, are often too small to support apex predators. Leopold remembers in 1909 when the West was full of grizzlies, but now, in the 1940s, five of every six grizzly bears is in Alaska. Leopold sees this as a great loss: “relegating grizzles to Alaska is about like relegating happiness to heaven; one may never get there.”

To save the grizzly, land must be set aside, free of livestock and roads. To save grizzlies, or to save the wilderness, requires both “a long view of conservation, and a historical perspective.” Leopold hopes that with improved education, more citizens will understand the ways in which “relics” of the wild West can enhance its present and future.  

Leopold points out that “wilderness is a resource which can shrink but not grow.” Although there are various organizations dedicated to its protection—including The Wilderness Society and The Sierra Club—he believes they cannot do enough. Instead, individuals need to become scholars of the wilderness, and deeply consider its cultural value.