Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but on thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
- Chief Seattle
When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
- Cree Prophecy
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.
- Aldo Leopold
Leopold in his wonderful essay on The Land Ethic enlarges the boundaries of what we consider our community to include soil, waters, plants, and animals – what he calls the biotic community. He offers as a rule to measure the morality of our actions within our communities the affect on the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic world.
If we consider that we inhabit a dualistic world – the biotic and abiotic – where the abiotic community includes buildings, roads, and other human-made artifacts, and the biotic includes soil, water, air, and all organic life – then this rule can be taken as a measure for evaluating the human constructed environment, or the abiotic world.
As we consider the third guiding principle of localism – regeneration, we can be guided in finding innovative solutions by respecting the integrity of the biotic world – meaning recognizing wholeness by refraining from dividing the biotic community into artificial and unhealthy segments; stability – building in a sustainable and self-renewing fashion; and beauty – ensuring that our human constructed environments are perceptually appealing by fitting harmoniously into the already existing biotic and abiotic environments.
