TH USOT 
co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to 
compete for). 
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the 
community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or 
collectively: the land. 
This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for 
and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the 
brave? Yes, but just what and whom do we love? Certainly 
not the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter downriver. 
Certainly not the waters, which we assume have no function 
except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry off sewage. 
Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole 
communities without batting an eye. Certainly not the 
animals, of which we have already extirpated many of the 
largest and most beautiful species. A land ethic of course 
cannot prevent the alteration, management, and use of these 
'resources, but it does affirm their right to continued exist- 
ence, and, at least in spots, their continued existence in a 
natural state. 
In, short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens 
from conqueror of the land-community to plain member 
and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, 
and also respect for the community as such. 
In human history, we have learned (I hope) that the 
conqueror role is eventually self-defeating. Why? Because 
it is implicit in such a role that the conqueror knows, ex 
cathedra, just what makes the community clock tick, and 
just what and who is valuable, and what and who is worth- 
less, in community life. It always turns out that he knows 
neither, and this is why his conquests eventually defeat 
themselves. 
In the biotic community, a parallel situation exists. Abra- 
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