Leopold's ecocentric land ethic is popular today with mainstream environmentalists for a number of reasons. Unlike more radical environmental approaches, such as deep ecology or biocentrism, it does not require huge sacrifices of human interests. Leopold does not, for example, believe that humans should stop eating or hunting, or experimenting on animals. Nor does he call for a massive reduction in the human population, or for permitting humans to interfere with nature only to satisfy vital human needs (regardless of economic or other human costs). As an environmental ethic, Leopold's land ethic is a comparatively moderate view that seeks to strike a balance between human interests and a healthy and biotically diverse natural environment. Many of the things mainstream environmentalists favor—preference for native plants and animals over invasive species, hunting or selective culling to control overpopulated species that are damaging to the environment, and a focus on preserving healthy, self-regenerating natural ecosystems both for human benefit and for their own intrinsic value—jibe with Leopold's ecocentric land ethic.
