A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There is a book by Aldo Leopold, an ecologist and environmentalist. The book is comprised of essays that relate aspects of natural history, philosophy and Leopold's understanding of "land ethic": a belief that people must live with and respect the balance of the "biotic community," the ecosystem that humans inevitably confront. The end of the book deals with some of the hypocrisies of environmentalism and the ways in which conservation efforts have often backfired.