Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Director Q & A: A final note from Jerry DeWitt

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By JERRY DEWITT, Leopold Center director

On one of my last days as Leopold Center director, I had been sorting through the many souvenirs of my 38-year career at Iowa State and the Leopold Center. I came across a piece I wrote in the 1990s on the protection of natural resources that is surprisingly suitable for recycling in 2010. Here are my “ten steps for natural resource protection/action,” still good today.

1. Technology will not save us: We cannot count on an endless supply of “silver bullets” to solve our environmental problems.

2. Attitudes leading to behavior change will make the difference: People who choose to change will be more likely to continue doing what is needed for preserving their natural resources.

3. Personalizing natural resources and taking ownership are needed: Aldo Leopold encouraged us to be citizens of the natural world, and his advice remains valid.

4. Policy and practice must be addressed: We can’t protect our natural resources without rules and farming practices that are created to work together to look after our soil and water.

5. Listen and learn and not exclude: Look for the things that unite us as good stewards of the land instead of focusing on the points that divide us. There are many good ways to farm.

6. Natural resources are not someone else’s worry: We’re all in this together, rural and urban dwellers alike. The Floods of 2008 showed us how closely connected the farm and town are when faced with nature’s force.

7. Interface, not face off with natural resources: Look for ways to be one with the land and water—Iowa’s natural resources are not adversaries to be conquered.

8. Don’t subscribe to double standards: No, the problem is not just your neighbor’s, the big farmer’s, the city council’s, or the county board of supervisors’.

9. People will make the difference, not the organizational structure: This is especially critical now, when our governmental organizational structures are economically stressed or downsized. Citizens need to be more proactive in looking for solutions to their local dilemmas.

10. Delete the term environmentalist from our vocabulary: John F. Kennedy said, “For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

These are my last words speaking for our soil and water.

- Jerry DeWitt

Back to Leopold Letter Summer 2010