Donella Meadows Quotes

I also have an idea for a book on biodiversity, and why and how we should be conserving it.

Our national conservation effort must include the complete spectrum of resources: air, water, and land; fuels, energy, and minerals; soils, forests, and forage; fish and wildlife. Together they make up the world of nature which surrounds us- of the American heritage.

The quicker we humans learn that saving open space and wildlife is critical to our welfare and quality of life, maybe we'll start thinking of doing something about it.

When we settled our country, the dark forest was considered in some ways evil and something that you needed to plow or, later, bulldoze. We now have a new understanding of the interconnectedness of ecosystems and the need for bird flyways and why all species matter.

'The Creation' presents an argument for saving biological diversity on Earth. Most of the book is for as broad an audience as possible.

True conservation means protecting the entire habitat.

We must not risk defunding environmental conservation programs, which is why Congress should reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund to preserve our natural resources.

To this day, I enjoy nature, the luxury of undisturbed wilderness, forests, mountains, lakes, rivers and deserts and their wildlife. But I also know that the greatest danger to their perpetuity is the pressure of human population.

The first law of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts

Humans are a great survivor species but our survival will be pretty grim if all of the plants and animals we depend on die out. That's why any human survival strategy has to include a plan to maintain our environment roughly in the state that it's in now.

Today, we must realize that nature is revealed in the simplest meadow, wood lot, marsh, stream, or tidepool, as well as in the remote grandeur of our parks and wilderness areas.

The only thing left worth saving is wilderness.

A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.

The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.

Protecting eagles from the threat of extinction is a conservation success story that we must prudently safeguard for future generations to come.

The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there's a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants.

Congress has an obligation to protect our country's natural beauty, embodied in our nation's parks, rivers, and breathtaking landscapes.

Wilderness, like the national park system, was an American idea.

So often we talk about saving the planet, but what we really mean is to save the planet the way it is, so we can live here. So that is can sustain us.

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

My belief is that what comes across on the television is a capture of my enthusiasm and my passion for wildlife.

I love all of the ecosystems - mountains, deserts, rainforests. They're beautiful, and nature has so many different flavors to it.

Nature conserves, prefers novelty.

It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for - the whole thing - rather than just one or two stars.

Endangered species are our friends.