INSPIRED BY LEOPOLD’S LAND ETHIC Sharing the Land was inspired by iconic conservationist Aldo Leopold’s Riley Game Cooperative. One day in 1931, a Wisconsin farmer named Reuben Paulson was washing milk cans when a stranger approached. The visitor, who it turned out was Leopold, asked for a bit of water to fend off the heat of the day. As Midwesterners often do, the pair soon fell into the rhythm of affable conversation. Leopold soon proposed an idea. He would work for free to improve the health of the landscape. In exchange, Paulson would allow him to come back later and hunt. The farmer, the hunter, and the plants and animals around them would all benefit. A five-minute stroll in any direction in the rural town of Riley, Wisconsin led to dense old woods, verdant farm fields, pale grasslands, and wetlands that should have been brimming with life. But much of what Leopold saw on the landscape was degraded, and the biotic community, sullied by the hands and machines of people, needed restoration. The Riley Game Cooperative was born. It was purely grassroots. No bureaucracy was involved. No money changed hands. No single person or corporation got rich, but everyone – and everything – benefited. More access. More habitat. More wild food. More pristine views of the area’s deep crimson sunsets. Just people working side-by-side to heal the natural world around them. Local farmers joined, as did hunters who volunteered in exchange for access. Volunteers helped with chores and projects. In return, they got to reap the bounty of the wild world. The land grew healthier. People opened new worlds of outdoor adventure for themselves and their neighbors. The co-op flourished and thrived for a time, but it eventually vanished after Leopold’s death. In its time, it was the very embodiment of Leopold’s famous Land Ethic. He wrote that such a belief system enlarges the boundaries of the “community” to include soils, waters, plants, and animals. For Leopold, caring for other people was inexorably linked to caring for the entire community of rivers, trees, creatures, soil, grass, and more. He believed that anyone who rolled up their sleeves and helped their broader “community” was doing something profoundly meaningful. “Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how,” Leopold wrote. “To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree - and there will be one.” Nearly a century later, the Sharing the Land initiative has rekindled and fanned the flame of Leopold’s idea that people can work together to promote land access and healthy habitat. Founder Doug Duren, another well known Wisconsin conservationist, has worked feverishly to bring together landowners and access-seekers all over the nation, building on Leopold’s idea. While people, wildlife, farmers, and the places they all rely on face problems both ancient and new, he believes one of the key solutions is simply working together, sweating a bit, and getting to know soil, trees, fields, flowers, birds, and beasts in the process. If the Sharing the Land initiative works, countless people, including many who wouldn’t otherwise have the financial or geographical means, will reap the bounty of a healthy ecosystem. Trout will shimmer as they course through cleaner waters. Deer will once again find balance in their woodland homes. Hunters, anglers, and foragers will roll up their sleeves and improve the balance of nature. When the work is done, they will return and reap what they sowed, gathering to talk about their adventures over plates overflowing with buttery morels, burgundy venison, rich rabbit stew, or delicate fish. Duren preaches the gospel of Sharing the Land wherever he goes. Its mantra is a guiding sentiment he inherited from his father, Vincent Duren, who taught him much of what he knows about the importance of Land Ethic. “It’s not ours,” Duren tells anyone and everyone who will listen. “It’s just our turn.” Since 2021, Sharing the Land has successfully partnered with 35 Landowners in 13 states and has opened more than 20,000 acres of private land to enrolled Access Seekers. Sharing the Land isn’t only focused on hunting; it’s working to open areas for an array of other uses, including fishing, foraging, hiking, birdwatching and more.