Land Ethic booklet
March 5, 2026
Our Land Ethic Booklet is available:
East-West Sisters Write Their Land Ethic
“Earth, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor. (2) The world is a web of relationships… Everything is interconnected.” (240)
— Laudato Si’
Pope Francis has called us to deepen our awareness and to respond concretely to the urgent need to care for Earth, which is seriously threatened by destruction.
In considering plans of action, we, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur of the East-West Unit, having spent the past year revisiting and rediscovering the magnificence of the land and creatures under our care, are now embarking on the next step, the collective writing of our Land Ethic.
In considering options about the future of this land, the Land Ethic will guide our collective decision-making. This is not the first time our Sisters have written a Land Ethic; the Sisters of the former Ipswich Province wrote theirs in 2015. This led them to put 71 acres of their Ipswich land into conservancy.
What is a Land Ethic?
The environmentalist Aldo Leopold wrote “A Sand County Almanac” in 1949, explaining his conception of a Land Ethic: “An ethic that treats land not as a commodity but as a community of soil, water, plants and animals.”
Leopold explains:
- A land ethic expands the definition of community to include humans and all parts of Earth: soil, water, plants, animals and land.
- A thing is right or ethical when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong or unethical when it tends to do otherwise.
- Care for people cannot be separated from care for the land and all creatures. All are connected, are intertwined.
For a deeper understanding, see www.aldoleopold.org or read “A Sand County Almanac.”
— by the East-West Laudato Si’ Extended Team,
as featured in the Sowing Goodness Winter 2024 edition.
