Evo Morales Quotes

Africa is wealthy in natural resources; the problem is they are not optimally utilized.

Important reserves of natural resources, like petroleum and precious metals, are the bulwarks for laying the foundations for the future.

It is only through developing and maximizing all its natural resources that a sustainable future for Africa and its people can be secured.

The soil of no country is rich enough to attain a great mass of wealth, merely by the exchange and exportation of its own natural product.

I'm not giving away oil for free. Just using oil, first to benefit our people, to relieve poverty.

New technology lets you grow the resource pie, which is the only way you can get out between that pincer of rising consumption (as we end poverty) and environmental and natural resource depletion.

We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources ... But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted.

If you look around the world, the countries with the best environmental practices are the wealthiest. There's a reason for that. If you're worried about where your next meal is going to come from or shelter over your head, your focus is on those things.

One problem in Africa has been a small population. And the natural resources were large. So you could be as foolish as possible. But you didn’t die. You just remained there eating mangoes and bananas. Now the population in Africa is growing. So the idea that you can go on with idiotic policies is not sustainable. Because a big population needs answers.

I have very large ideas about the mineral wealth of the nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible.

Why did we leave Afghanistan? It’s because there is no oil in Afghanistan.

I will put Iran’s oil income on people’s dinner table.

The oil companies don’t own the resources…. We own the resources.

Except for a few oil-rich countries, no developing country has successfully modernized without slowing population growth.

We must be cognizant of the fact that the absence of economic rationality and perpetual political instability in our societies prevent us from fully benefiting from our resources as well as capabilities. In the extreme case, we find ourselves in devastating wars. Our conflict-ridden geography has substantially undercut our ability to develop economically. Natural wealth, including oil revenues has been wasted and the focus of attention has been other than human development

The primary task of developing countries is to develop the economy and eradicate poverty. Without economic growth, there would be no material basis for a better life or better environment for the people. But economic growth must not be achieved at the cost of environment or resources. In the absence of proper resource and environmental protection, there could be no sustainable economic development.

While Arctic warming is a fait accompli, it should not be taken as a license to recklessly plunder a sensitive environment …. Like it or not, the Arctic is open for business and governments and investors have every reason to get in on the ground floor.

We should not be strangling ourselves economically by not utilizing the resources we have been given or by putting them off-limits.

The raw materials that Australia has in abundance will always be critical to world growth.

Auctioning of natural resources such as spectrum, coal, oilfields, and land for commercial exploitation can largely substitute for tax impositions.

Globalization has made copper and other minerals more valuable, and Ghana and Kenya have recently discovered mineral resources.

As India becomes more tax-compliant, government revenues will improve, and we will be able to serve the poor better. We can have better roads, healthcare, education, and improve the life of farmers.

We cannot eliminate poverty without enabling developing countries to engage more people in economic activity that use natural resources, and we cannot resolve runaway climate change without creating wealth in a more equitable and less carbon intensive way.

We survived on natural resources, so we should take care of the earth. When I leave home, I do things like switching off the heat and lights.

Only a state with resources can deplete poverty.