The development of the nature preserves system in Indiana : giving life to the land ethic

The movement to conserve natural resources in the United States began as a response to the perceived inefficiency which governed resource allocation. The subsequent environmental movement served to expand the definition of conservation to include not only the efficient use of resources, but also the preservation of land in its natural state. In Indiana, this supposed deficiency in conservation led some environmentalists to establish the Indiana Nature Preserves System which locates remnants of the Indiana wilderness and protects them from development. The Indiana Nature Preserves System is symbolic of the Land Ethic proposed by the early ecologist Aldo Leopold, who believed that man was but one component of the "land community." To alter all natural areas, Leopold and Indiana preservationists argued, was both an assault on ecological stability and on the right of nature to exist for its own sake.Department of HistoryThesis (M.A.