Sebastiao Salgado Quotes

Black-and-white photography, which I was doing in the very early days, was essentially called art photography and usually consisted of landscapes by people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. But photographs by people like Adams didn't interest me.

It is a wonderful honor to receive the Audubon Medal from the National Audubon Society, which for more than a century has fought tirelessly to protect and preserve our natural resources and environment for future generations.

Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past ... [A] new ecological awareness is beginning to emerge which rather than being downplayed, ought to be encouraged to develop into concrete programs and initiatives.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

'Being green' is commendable, but I hope that people don't take too much pride and self-adoration because they shut off the water when they brushed their teeth. The truth of the matter is, conservation alone will do little to save our planet.

We have reached a new milestone as a human family. With seven billion of us now inhabiting our planet, it is time to ask some fundamental questions. How can we provide a dignified life for ourselves and future generations while preserving and protecting the global commons - the atmosphere, the oceans and the ecosystems that support us?

I am not a tree-hugger and I don't think mine is an extreme point of view.

A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.

All the conservation efforts in the world won't be enough to make a dent in the oncoming sustainability crisis our planet faces.

Whoever wants me to talk, I'll come over and tell them about the necessity of preserving the Everglades.

I think it's important to be kind to the world before it disappears if we don't take care of it.

Here are the facts we confront. No one is against conservation. No one is against alternative fuel sources.

I don't believe that anyone can see the Grand Canyon area for themselves and not know that we have to do everything we can to protect it for future generations.

This Earth is our only home. Together, we must protect and cherish it.

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.

Schoolchildren and older people like the idea of planting trees. For children, it's interesting that an acorn will grow into an oak, and for older people it's a legacy. And the act of planting a tree is not that difficult.

From high school, you can see my Sierra Club card - I've been a member since 1979. That gives you an indication of early interest.

She was green when green wasn't in. From sea to shining sea, Lady Bird Johnson has left her legacy in a more beautiful America. From millions of trees and wildflowers planted, to interstates free from billboards and replaced with green.

I don't think we're going to save anything if we go around talking about saving plants and animals only; we've got to translate that into what's in it for us.

No day is alike - I do many other things, and I'm very active in the environmental movement.

Well, perhaps the greatest achievement, and we didn't know it at the time, was we held an Earth Day in 1970, and out of that Earth Day a lot of students got involved in saving the environment, or trying to.

I have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.

So many times I've photographed stories that show the degradation of the planet. I had one idea to go and photograph the factories that were polluting, and to see all the deposits of garbage. But, in the end, I thought the only way to give us an incentive, to bring hope, is to show the pictures of the pristine planet - to see the innocence.

Arbor Day is not like other holidays. Each of those reposes on the past, while Arbor Day proposes for the future.

If you look at the state of our planet, the next generations won't be around if we consider sustainability as a gimmick.