Nature Speaks program looks at environmentalist Aldo Leopold
The Prospect Heights Natural Resources Commission and the Prospect Heights Public Library are co-sponsoring another entertaining and educational program from 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 22, titled "Aldo Leopold Listens to the Southwest."
The program will be presented by author, lecturer and historian Dan Shilling.
Forester "Aldo" Leopold (1887-1948) is considered one of the founding voices of environmental ethics, although the discipline did not exist when his book, "A Sand County Almanac," was published posthumously in 1949.
His collection of essays popularized the idea of a "land ethic," and like Henry David Thoreau, Leopold eventually became required reading across the curriculum of conservation, philosophy, history, literature.
In 1909, as a new ranger in the recently established Apache National Forest, Leopold shot a wolf in northeastern Arizona. At the time, he sensed something was wrong, but it would take 35 years for him to express his unease and put forth a new ecological insight in "Thinking Like a Mountain," one of the most famous essays in environmental literature.
Dan Shilling's presentation offers a historical insight into Leopold the man and the things that shaped him, ultimately forming his environmental ethics.
Rather than focus on Leopold's Midwestern years, this presentation maintains that the seeds of Leopold's revolutionary thought can be found in his years in Arizona and New Mexico (1909-1924). In particular, the talk explores how Indigenous attitudes toward nature helped shape Leopold's nearly 40-year intellectual journey.
Shilling is a native Pennsylvanian, where he taught high school and moved to Arizona in 1980 to earn his Ph.D. from Arizona State University. Shilling joined the Arizona Humanities Council as a program officer in 1984, and served as its executive director from 1989-2003. After serving on more than 50 boards and commissions, Arizona State University presented him its most prestigious honor, the Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Register for this free program by visiting www.phpl.info. The program will take place virtually through the library's Zoom platform. Instructions for logging into the program will be emailed to registrants on the day of the program.
Nature Speaks is a partnership between Prospect Heights Natural Resources Commission and the Prospect Heights Public Library.