Wangari Maathai Quotes

We discover too late that we have turned a blind eye to the extinction of a species that is essential to the balance of life in a particular context. Or we discover too late that the importation of a foreign life-form, animal or vegetable, has upset local ecosystems, damaging soil or neighbouring life-forms. We discover that we have come near the end of supplies-of fossil-fuels for example -on which we have built immense structures of routine expectation.

Nile perch is a fish that was introduced into Lake Victoria. The reason that fish was introduced into Lake Victoria was because it was decided that the people living near the lake needed more proteins than they were getting.

I also, as I think most people do, have a healthy instinct that if we upset the balance of nature, we are in all probability going to suffer a reaction. With world growth, and population as it is, this reaction must increase.

We must recognize that we're all part of a web of life around the world. Anytime you extinguish a species, the consequences are serious.

Apart from the most obvious cases, like the Oriental Bittersweet vine, escaped from private gardens and smothering the mountains one acre at a time, the most painful proof of man's destruction is not what you can see right in front of you; it's what you will never see again.

Producing food to eat is the single most destructive environmental activity humans engage in.

When our natural habitats become overrun by species that are not native to these areas, they can damage the environment, pose health risks, and even hurt our local economy.

Many people love grey squirrels, but the reality is that they are a real problem for some of our most threatened native species, like the red squirrel and dormouse. It is not realistic, practical or even desirable to completely eradicate grey squirrels, but we must control them effectively.

It is upsetting that many people don't seem to observe what's happening to the environment, what's happening in terms of global warming, the loss of habitats and wild things.

The idea of the industrial fishing affects everyone. Those factory ships play this game of hit and run with the international fishing limits, and somebody said it's like hunting squirrels with a bulldozer. They pull everything in and they are only looking for certain types of fish and everything else dies and they just throw it back. It's like chumming.

Zebra mussels like to hitch a ride on boats when they're transferred from one body of water to another. It's important to make sure to thoroughly clean your boat each time it leaves the water to ensure these invasive mussels are removed and that you are not spreading them to your next location.

My relationship to the desecration of the earth was very theoretical and intellectual until I got sick. I could never watch anything about polar bears dying or the death of bees. There were certain things I knew I couldn't go near because they were too devastating. But I don't think until I got cancer did I get it in my body, what was happening to the earth. I finally went: "Oh! Earth! Organism!"

I think the world's still gonna be here in another 10, 20 years. But I'm not feeling great about things ecologically.

Make the wrong choices now and future generations will live with a changed climate, depleted resources and without the green space and biodiversity that contribute both to our standard of living and our quality of life

I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse.

I think it's important for people to be aware of the impact that climate change is having on this huge community of people.

This planet is our home and we're trashing and killing it.

I think the people running climate change denial campaigns are sociopaths.

The people who are out to destroy the environment think they're going to get away with it. Are they breathing different air than we're breathing? Are they eating different food? I mean, where do they think they're going to go? What do they think is going to be better than what they have destroyed? I just don't get it.

Humans are the most successful invasives of all time.

Present thinking people kill the future.

Among the environmental trends undermining our future are shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, disappearing species, and rising temperatures. The temperature increases bring crop-withering heat waves, more-destructive storms, more-intense droughts, more forest fires, and, of course, ice melting. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize.

I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem. Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It's not that we need more food. It's that we need to manage our food system better.

The problems to be faced are vast and complex, but come down to this: 6.6 billion people are breeding exponentially. The process of fulfilling their wants and needs is stripping earth of its biotic capacity to produce life; a climactic burst of consumption by a single species is overwhelming the skies, earth, waters, and fauna.

Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival.