Gaylord Nelson Quotes

Living wild species are like a library of books still unread. Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books.

The one process now going on 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.

Biological diversity is messy. It walks, it crawls, it swims, it swoops, it buzzes. But extinction is silent, and it has no voice other than our own.

Every time you lose an animal, it's like losing a brick from the house. Pretty soon the house just falls down, you know?

Biodiversity underpins life on earth. And if we don't look after this biodiversity, if we don't protect it, if we don't actually harness it in the right way, we are threatening our own livelihoods on this planet.

The irreversible loss of species, which by 2100 may reach one-third of all species now living, is especially serious. We are losing the potential they hold for providing medicinal and other benefits, and the contribution that genetic diversity of life forms gives to the robustness of the world's biological systems and to the astonishing beauty of the earth itself. Much of this damage is irreversible on a scale of centuries, or permanent. Other processes appear to pose additional threats. Increasing levels of gases in the atmosphere from human activities, including carbon dioxide released from fossil fuel burning and from deforestation, may alter climate on a global scale. Predictions of global warming are still uncertain—with projected effects ranging from tolerable to very severe—but the potential risks are very great.

You should issue demerits for tree cutting or the destruction of humus.

The whale is endangered, while the ant continues to do just fine.

The Endangered Species Act is the strongest and most effective tool we have to repair the environmental harm that is causing a species to decline.

What we should be doing is saving habitats, not single species, no matter what their cuteness factor.

People will be able to survive, of course, without honeycreepers and monk seals. But if the wolf spider is in trouble, we are in trouble, too.

Life is insanely robust, though we can make species go extinct, and this is the bad thing. So I always make the point that you can't say, 'Is it too late?' That is the terrible question, because either answer promotes inaction. If it's too late, you don't need to act; if it's not too late, you don't need to act.

You can cut a tree down, and it grows back. Once a species goes, it's gone forever.

Endangered species are our friends.

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

True conservation means protecting the entire habitat.

For the most part we don’t have an immediate impact on the species that surrounds us. But we do have an immediate impact on their habitat which determines whether they survive on in some cases shift their ground.

We are in grave danger of losing forever not just millions of years of evolution on earth, but the eons of change that have produced man and his natural environment.

If you want psychic gratification, one of the greatest ways is to know that you've made a real contribution to saving a species from blinking out during your lifetime.

People need to look at wildlife conservation in its totality. As soon as you lose the apex predator, it has harmful consequences right down the food chain.

In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.

It is imperative for us to protect the flora and fauna around us.

The earth is one big interconnected entity. If you hurt a piece, you hurt the whole. If you hurt the people, you hurt the environment.

You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer. You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream. You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct. And you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert. If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!

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.