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Legendary environmentalist Aldo Leopold will be the subject of a full-length high definition film—narrated by author Curt Meine—that will continue the 2011-12 season of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Arts & Issues series Feb. 2 and 3.

(Edwardsville, IL) -- Legendary environmentalist Aldo Leopold will be the subject of a full-length high definition film—narrated by author Curt Meine—that will continue the 2011-12 season of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Arts & Issues series Feb. 2 and 3, on the mainstage in SIUE’s Katherine Dunham Hall. Meine also will be on hand to answer questions after the showing.

Sponsored by the Madison County Regional Office of Education and the SIUE Wildlife and Conservation Biology Club, the film will be shown twice—once at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, and again at the same on Friday, Feb. 3. Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time highlights the environmentalist’s extraordinary career, tracing how he shaped and influenced the modern environmental movement.

For more than 25 years, SIUE’s Arts & Issues series has brought great performers and distinguished speakers to Southwestern Illinois. The official media sponsors for A&I are the Edwardsville Intelligencer and KWMU-FM, while the series official hotel sponsor is Hampton Inn and Suites. The 2011-12 Arts & Issues season is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

Arts & Issues Director Grant Andree said the film is a fascinating view of one man’s contribution to a movement that has become a global phenomenon. “The story of Aldo Leopold is the perfect example of how one person can make a difference,” Andree said. “This film is an exciting documentary that I’m sure our audience will find riveting.”

An early leader with the U.S. Forest Service, Leopold pioneered wildlife conservation and wilderness management techniques. Curt Meine is a conservation biologist and writer based in Prairie du Sac, Wis., and is a senior fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation, director of conservation biology and history for the Center for Humans and Nature, and a research associate with the International Crane Foundation.

Meine’s doctoral dissertation encompasses a biography of Aldo Leopold, published as “Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work.” Meine has undergraduate degrees from DePaul University in Chicago and a graduate degree in land resources from the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Leopold, who is considered by many the father of the U.S. wilderness system, was a conservationist, forester, philosopher, educator, writer and outdoor enthusiast. Born in 1887, Leopold studied the natural world at an early age, observing, journaling and sketching his surroundings.

He graduating from the Yale Forest School in 1909 and sought a career with the newly established U.S. Forest Service in Arizona and New Mexico. Later, he became supervisor of the Carson National Forest in New Mexico. In 1922, he was instrumental in developing the proposal to manage the Gila National Forest as a wilderness area, which became the first such official designation in 1924.

Transferred to Madison, Wis., two years later, Leopold continued to study ecology and the philosophy of conservation, and in 1933 published the first textbook in the field of wildlife management. Later, Leopold wrote a book that was geared for general audiences examining humanity’s relationship to the natural world.

A little more than a year after his death in 1948, Leopold’s collection of essays, "A Sand County Almanac," was published. With more than 2 million copies sold, it is one of the most respected books about the environment ever published, and Leopold has come to be regarded by many as the most influential conservation thinker of the 20th Century.





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