This weekend I had the chance to sit down with some friends on a rainy night and watch the Disney classic, Pocahontas. One line in particular from the movie spoke to me in coordination with a line from Leopold’s Land Ethic. Both Pocahontas and Leopold are addressing this issue we have with claiming the Earth around us as property when it is not right. I thought it was so interesting to see the same sentiment coming from two very different pieces. I also do not think this line in Pocahontas would has resonated with me as much as it did if I had not read the Land Ethic right before. Here are the lines from the two that I put together:

“You think you own whatever land you land on
The earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name”
–Pocahontas

“There is yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus’ slave-girls, is still property. The land relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but no obligations.”
–The Land Ethic