After graduating college, Jackson Newman discovered and read A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, and immediately felt compelled to join the Aldo Leopold Foundation. He was awarded a fellowship, and spent a year in Sand County, Wisconsin's 'Slough', writing two articles for the Foundation about land ethics and conservation. These two articles, titled The Backwash of the River Progress and The Guiding Virtues of the Land Ethic are the basis of this episode's discussion on land conservation between Jackson and host Stefan Van Norden.