The Leopold Legacy: Zedler cultivates UW’s rich tradition in restoration ecology

In her role as Aldo Leopold Chair of Restoration Ecology, Joy Zedler, above, walks the arboretum grounds she once called home as a graduate student. Her connection to the unique landscape helps her share the emotional, aesthetic view of land conservation embodied by Leopold, below, who helped create the Arboretum before serving as its first research director.

Having the UW–Madison Arboretum as home research turf would be thrilling enough for most botanists. But for Joy Zedler, the Arboretum is literally a former home, a place she and her husband Paul tended as on-site caretakers 30 years ago.

Their 40-by-7-foot trailer house froze in the winter and baked in the summer, “but it was fabulous,” Zedler recalls. “We had a woodchuck living underneath the house. Every day, I could watch birds out my front window. Lots of wonderful memories.”

After academic careers in Missouri and Southern California, the Zedlers have come full-circle. Today, Joy’s Arboretum faculty office oversees the old site of the trailer, and the memories deepen her connection to the place.

That historical connection suits Zedler’s current role. As the new Aldo Leopold Chair of Restoration Ecology, she will be cultivating the legacy of one of UW–Madison’s most influential professors, a man whose ideas form the roots of modern conservation.

“The concept that we need to take care of the land and respect the land is all-pervasive,” Zedler says. “Leopold gave it a name: the land ethic. It’s a wonderful name because it captures the whole concept of what conservation is all about.”

Leopold built an academic discipline around his land ethic, beginning as UW–Madison’s first professor of game management in 1933. He helped create the department of wildlife ecology and the Arboretum, where he served as the first research director.

In one of his books, A Sand County Almanac, Leopold observed the land not only on scientific but on emotional and aesthetic terms. The book sold millions of copies and influenced future environmental movements.

“He’s considered a patron saint of conservation biology and a founding father of wildlife ecology,” says Donald Waller, a botany professor.

Establishing the Leopold Chair is a landmark for the Arboretum and the botany department, Zedler’s academic home. The effort began 12 years ago with the idea of advancing the university’s great tradition in restoration ecology. Organizers were able to secure $2 million in public and private donations for the position.

The search committee also worked to bring the Zedlers here as a team. Paul Zedler also accepted a faculty position with the Arboretum and the Institute of Environmental Studies.

The Arboretum is composed of the largest and oldest restored ecological communities in existence, including the Curtis Prairie and Greene Prairie. The science and the tools of “healing the land” were forged there and influenced ecologists around the world, says Gregory Armstrong, director of the Arboretum.

“The Arboretum is really a living out of the land ethic,” Armstrong says. “This new position will be drawing the unique assets of the Arboretum closer to the academic community.”

This spring, Zedler is teaching the first graduate seminar held from start to finish on the Arboretum grounds. She is also working with a cadre of faculty from across campus on a National Science Foundation proposal, hoping to establish a restoration ecology center here.

The idea behind the NSF program perfectly reflects Zedler’s philosophy: that real-world applications and basic science are inseparable. The proposal promotes good science, with knowledge and advice that can be transferred to the field. It would bridge all kinds of restoration efforts, including wetlands, old-growth forests, agricultural lands and natural lands in urban settings.

Zedler, who built her research expertise on salt-marsh ecology at San Diego State University, will be among many faculty training the next generation of experts on land restoration. Like Leopold, she has a public role of translating the science of restoration to the mainstream.

“I would like to be the glue between all the elements in the state interested in land restoration,” she says.

This focused effort is critical today, says Armstrong. Land restoration is a priority nationwide, as we need to counter the effects of large-scale land development. It’s also central to how we care for wild and natural land.

Preservation remains crucial today, Armstrong says, but it’s not enough. Wild lands have typically become so fragmented and degraded that restoring them requires active help. Prairies are a perfect example, he says: Southern Wisconsin once had 7 million acres of prairies and savannas, but fewer than 1 percent remain.

The science of “healing the land” is being practiced across campus, Waller says. It’s also being put to work across Wisconsin, in places like the Baraboo Hills, the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, Nicolet National Forest and Dane County’s own Yahara lakes, he says.

Zedler says the emotional bond with nature, which Leopold eloquently captured, fuels most environmental movements today. In Leopold’s time, the majority of Americans still lived on the land, but people are more disconnected today by urban life.

“People have to work harder to have experiences with nature,” she says. “They’re willing to devote so much of their time to conservation because it’s dwindling.”