Aldo Leopold - 'Round River' + 'A Sand County Almanac'

This weeks Green Thought is taken from Aldo Leopold’s Round River and A Sand County Almanac ( written in the 30’s and 40’s).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Leopold

(from ‘Conservation’ in Round River)

‘The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant : ‘What good is it ?’ If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good’, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts ?

To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering’.