Critics of environmental laws complain that such rules often burden people unequally, restrict individual liberty, and undercut private property rights. In formulating responses to these criticisms, the conservation effort has stumbled badly, says Eric T. Freyfogle in this thought-provoking book. Conservationists and environmentalists haven't done their intellectual homework, he contends, and they have failed to offer an understandable, compelling vision of healthy lands and healthy human communities.
Freyfogle explores why the conservation movement has responded ineffectually to the many...

A collection of previously unavailable essays by environmentalist Aldo Leopold, building on the tradition of ethical land use and developing the concept of land health and the practical measures landowners can take to sustain it. Containing over 40 short pieces arranged in a seasonal almanac form along with longer essays arranged chronologically, each piece is introduced and set in context by the editors.

Since the birth of the modern environmental movement in the 1970s, the United States has witnessed dramatic shifts in social equality, ecological viewpoints, and environmental policy. With these changes has also come an increased popular resistance to environmental reform, but, as Eric T. Freyfogle reveals in this book, that resistance has far deeper roots. Calling upon key environmental voices from the past and present--including Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, David Orr, and even Pope Francis in his Encyclical--and exploring core concepts like wilderness and the tragedy of the commons, A...