Quotes

“Even if we act immediately, the world is doomed to lose many of its animal and plant species and this inturn will reduce the ability of ecosystems to deliver vital services to human populations. The Red List gives all of us a practical tool for raising awareness of the biodiversity crisis and for forging new partnerships within the international community”. -- Achim Steiner

“Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten”. Cree Indian Prophecy

ldquo;Human destruction is the most critical factor in the fate of the pandas. If biodiversity cannot be protected in protected areas, where can we protect biodiversity?”Jianguo Liu

“Each generation takes the Earth as trustees. We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests and orchards as we have exhausted and consumed.” —J. Sterling Morton

“If you violate Nature's laws you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman”.Luther Burbank

“Conservation is everybody’s Business”. Valli Moosa

"We consider species to be like a brick in the foundation of a building. You can probably lose one or two or a dozen bricks and still have a standing house. But by the time you've lost 20 per cent of species, you're going to destabilize the entire structure. That's the way ecosystems work."- Donald Falk

"When we protect the places where the processes of life can flourish, we strengthen not only the future of medicine, agriculture and industry, but also the essential conditions for peace and prosperity." ~ Harrison Ford

“As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness, love and compassion. That these animals suffer through human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please help to stop this madness”. -- Richard Gere

"We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well - for we will not fight to save what we do not love."~ Stephen Jay Gould

“It's the next annihilation of vast numbers of species. It is happening now, and we, the human race, are its cause" ~ Richard Leakey

“Yet, despite our many advances, our environment is still threatened by a range of problems, including global climate change, energy dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels, and loss of biodiversity”. -- Dan Lipinski

"Natural species are the library from which genetic engineers can work."- Thomas E. Lovejoy

“We share this planet with many species. It is our responsibility to protect them, both for their sakes and our own”. - Pamela A. Matson

“Every time we lose a species we break a life chain which has evolved over 3.5 billion years”. -- Jeffrey McNeely

"We human beings are part of 'biodiversity.' We are dependent on the whole food chain down below us."— Darrell Merrell

"The current massive degradation of habitat and extinction of species is taking place on a catastrophically short timescale, and their effects will fundamentally reset the future evolution of the planet's biota." -- National Academy of Sciences

“We develop our beautiful planet in such a way that we brush aside the species… we risk creating a wasteland, where our aspirations will ultimately wither and die" -- Queen Noor of Jordan

“When I hear of the destruction of a species, I feel just as if all the works of some great writer have perished." ~>Theodore Roosevelt

“The value of biodiversity is more than the sum of its parts."- Byran G. Norton

“One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us”.  Black Elk

  “Each species on our planet plays a role in the healthy functioning of natural ecosystems, on which humans depend”. - William H. Schlesinger,

“Uniformity is not nature's way; diversity is nature's way”. ~Vandana Shiva

“Once species become extinct, no corrective legislation can bring them back—they are gone forever”. - Allen M. Solomon

"Our moral and ethical responsibility is to protect other species in the spirit of husbandry rather than destroy them in and attitude of conquest."
~ Charles Southwick

“Many people are helping to make the world a better place, but humanity as a whole is making it difficult for other living creatures that share our planet to survive”. --Robert Alan

"The world is currently undergoing a very rapid loss of biodiversity comparable with the great mass extinction events that have previously occurred only five or six times in the Earth's history." -- World Wildlife Fund

“Are we to regard the world of nature simply as a storehouse to be robbed for the immediate benefit of man?” ~ Kenneth E. Boulding

"There is something fundamentally wrong with treating the earth as if it were a business in liquidation."~Herman Daly

“Biodiversity is the greatest treasure we have... Its diminishment is to be prevented at all cost”. - Thomas Eisner

“Scientists know we must protect species because they are working parts of our life-support system”. -- >Paul Ehrlich

“We envision a world where trees and forests are abundant, healthy, and sustainable, and highly valued by all people.”-Abhor Day Foundation

“To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, and to live as a people, we must have trees.” —Theodore Roosevelt

“The best friend on earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources of the earth.”—Frank Lloyd Wright

“No shade tree? Blame not the sun but yourself”.—Chinese Proverb

“The cultivation of trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful, and the ennobling in man”. —J. Sterling Morton

“Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; The arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave”.  Alexander Pope

“It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees”. Wangari Maathai

“There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before”.
Robert Wilson Lynd

“It is absolutely imperative that we protect, preserve and pass on this genetic heritage for man and every other living thing in as good a condition as we received it”. David R. Brower

“Disease is the bullet that's killing the frogs. But climate change is pulling the trigger. Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians, and soon will cause staggering losses of biodiversity.” J. Alan Pounds

“We must protect Biodiversity if we are to protect ourselves. Our job is to educate others particularly the public, so we can help them to understand that their health ultimately depends on the health of the global environment”. Eric Chivian

"Either we redouble our efforts to protect species and reverse the problems degrading natural communities, or we will be left with depleted, far simpler ecological systems that no longer provide the material, aesthetic, and spiritual benefits we have long taken for granted, we still have the choice of saving most species-but our children may not." Tuxill.

“How can we expect to preserve and protect biodiversity if we don’t even know the names of the plants and animals that share our neighbourhood?” Robert Bateman, wildlife artist

“Each species on our planet plays a role in the healthy functioning of natural ecosystems, on which humans depend”. - William H. Schlesinger,

"What is the nature of a species that knowingly and without good reason exterminates another?"- George Small

“Once species become extinct, no corrective legislation can bring them back—they are gone forever”. - Allen M. Solomon

"Those who wish to pet and baby wildlife love them, but those who respect their natures and wish to let them live their natural lives, love them more."- Edwin Way Teale

"Our moral and ethical responsibility is to protect other species in the spirit of husbandry rather than destroy them in and attitude of conquest."
~ Charles Southwick

"The effects of human activities on biodiversity have increased so greatly that the rate of species extinctions is rising to hundreds or thousands of times the background level." -- United Nations Earth Watch (UNEP)

"Without habitat, there is no wildlife. It's that simple."- Wildlife Habitat Canada

“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity. -- E. O. Wilson

"The world is currently undergoing a very rapid loss of biodiversity comparable with the great mass extinction events that have previously occurred only five or six times in the Earth's history." -- World Wildlife Fund

“Our health relies entirely on the vitality of our fellow species on Earth." Harrison Ford

“For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal."~ Thomas Jefferson

“In the area of species protection, we should concern ourselves with what is right as opposed to what might be easier, or popular in the short term." ~ Richard Leakey

"It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of something else."- Maimonides

"We are into the opening stages of a human-caused biotic holocaust--a wholesale elimination of species--that could leave the planet impoverished for at least five million years." -- Norman Myers

"Without knowing it, we utilize hundreds of products each day that owe their origin to wild animals and plants. Indeed our welfare is intimately tied up with the welfare of wildlife. Well may conservationists proclaim that by saving the lives of wild species, we may be saving our own."- Norman Myers

“We are committed with our lives to building a different model and a different future for humanity, the Earth, and other species. We have envisaged a moral alternative to economic globalization and we will not rest until we see it realized”. -- Maude Barlow

 “A diverse ecosystem will also be resilient, because it contains many species with overlapping ecological functions that can partially replace one another. When a particular species is destroyed by a severe disturbance so that a link in the network is broken, a diverse community will be able to survive and reorganize itself... In other words, the more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be”. -- Fritjof Capra

“I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.” —Jose Ortega y Gasset

“Whenever I have found myself stuck in the ways I relate to things, I return to nature. It is my principal teacher, and I try to open my whole being to what it has to say”. Wynn Bullock 

“Trust one who has tried it, you will find more in woods than in books; trees and stones will teach you what you can never learn from masters”.  - Saint Bernard de Clairvaux

“Look!  Look!  Look deep into nature and you will understand everything”.  Albert Einstein

“The very process of the restoring the land to health is the process through which we become attuned to Nature and, through Nature, with ourselves”.  Chris Maser, Forest Primeval

Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees. - Bible

“Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it”.Henry David Thoreau

“I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?”Robert Redford

“Ecological networks are not just a tool for linking up protected areas; they are also an essential mechanism for mainstreaming biodiversity conservation in other sectors such as Agriculture”. Andre Van der Zande.

“Biodiversity conservation is the concept.” Rudi van Aarde

"An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity." -- E. O. Wilson

"Plant genetic resources are seldom 'raw materials'; they are the expression of the current wisdom of farmers who have played a highly significant role in the building up of the world's genetic resource base. As is already happening in my country, farmers and national genebanks in developing countries can work together to preserve and expand crop genetic diversity on behalf of all humanity."~ Melaku Worede

“The medical argument for animal testing doesn't stand up. Even if it did, I don't think we should kill other species. We think we're so much better; I'm not sure we are. I tell people, We've beaten into submission every animal on the face of the Earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn't we be generous? I really do think it's time to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we've got to show that we're kind”. -- Paul McCartney

“What an extraordinary time to be alive. We’re the first people on our planet to have real choice: we can continue killing each other, wiping out other species, spoiling our nest. Yet on every continent a revolution in human dignity is emerging. It is re-knitting community and our ties to the earth. So we do have a choice. We can choose death; or we can choose life." -- Frances Moore Lappe

"We find ourselves ethically destitute just when, for the first time, we are faced with ultimacy, the irreversible closing down of the earth's functioning in its major life systems. Our ethical traditions know how to deal with suicide, homicide and even genocide, but these traditions collapse entirely when confronted with biocide, the killing of the life systems of the earth, and geocide, the devastation of the earth itself."~ Thomas Berry

“God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools”. John Muir

“It is my Arbor Day wish that we care passionately about our communities. That we build green and graceful cities. That we no longer build and neglect and abandon and move on. But that we first care for where we are. That we rebuild and restore, plant and replant. That we make gardens of our cities”. —John Rosenow

“In his arrogance over his own increasing knowledge and ability, man has ignored his dependence on the earth and has lost his communion with it. He no longer puts his ear to the ground so that the earth can whisper its secrets to him. He has cut his links with the elements and has squandered the resources which are the heritage of millions of years of evolution, all those living or inanimate things which sustained his inner energy-earth, water, air, the flora and fauna. This loosening of his intuitive response to nature has created a feeling of alienation in him and is destructive of his patrimony”.  Indira Ghadhi, india

“Loss of the world’s genetic diversity would be worse than energy depletion, economic collapse, limited nuclear war or conquest by a totalitarian government .As terrible as those catastrophes would be for us, they could be repaired in a few generations. The one process ongoing in the 1980’s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us”. E.O Wilson

“This we know: the earth does not belong to man: man belongs to the earth... All things are connected like the blood which unites one family...Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself”. Chief Seattle in a letter to U.S President Franklin Pierce in 1855.