A boyhood fascination of nature led Mike Dombeck to study plants and animals leading to an important career as Acting Director of the Bureau of Land Management and Chief of the U.S. Forest Service in Washington D.C.. The land ethic written about by Aldo Leopold was influential and he often quotes it. Published in 1949 as the finale to A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic” essay is a call for moral responsibility to the natural world. At its core, the idea of a land ethic is simply caring: about people, about land, and about strengthening the relationships between them.