Photograph by Carl Leopold. Reprinted courtesy of the Aldo

Trained as a forester, Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) was)rst by avocation and later by vocation an ecologist of remarkably broad vision and understand-ing. At each stage in his life—from his boyhood along the Mississippi River in Iowa and his education in the East, through his career with the U.S. For-est Service in the Southwest, to his return to the Midwest in Wisconsin—he sought out jobs, travel, and experiences to expand his understanding of land-scapes and their biota. *e trajectory of his intellectual growth re+ects the lessons he learned in each region, ampli)ed by trips he took to Germany and Mexico. *e sense of place that informed and inspired his thinking emerges most insistently in A Sand County Almanac, centered on an abandoned farm he restored with his family along the Wisconsin River. *is book and his community-based concepts of ecology and land health, esthetics, and ethics emerged from a lifetime of close and patient observation leavened by Leopold’s Legacy 41 a deepening understanding of how humans a,ect ecosystems and how, in turn, people relate to landscapes. A-er exploring the sense of place Leopold experienced in various landscapes, we discuss his role in pioneering three approaches to ecological science: the comparison of di,erent places, the use of history to analyze environmental change in a particular place, and the use of experiments. As Leopold pointed out, detailed knowledge of particular places gives us two rewards: the scienti)c understanding we need to man-age land and an aesthetic appreciation for natural places that can inspire us to conserve and restore land. Leopold’s land ethic is thus grounded in both ecological understanding and love of place. His lessons continue to resonate with ecologists and inspire conservationists