Philippe Cousteau Jr. 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.

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.

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

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

Right now there should be a moratorium on the cutting down of old growth in this country. That is a small thing to ask at this point. There is only four percent of old growth left. Ninety-six percent of it has been cut down.

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.

We don't need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth's surface remaining in tropical rain forests, with most of the animal and plant species living there.

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.

I do think we're an endangered species. But that we do have a plan to save the rainforest.

No more wolves, wilderness or welfare.

If you think about it, every single species is endangered. Homo sapiens at the front of the line, mosquitoes and lawyers at the back.

The protection of biodiversity and, therefore, of endangered species is an issue to which I attach a great deal of importance.

The world breaks a little bit every time we cut down a tree. It's so much easier to cut one down than to grow one. And so it's worth interrogating every time we do it.

The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.

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.

Most people know that forests are the lungs of our planet, literally playing a critical role in every breath we take. And that they're also home to incredible animals like the orangutan and elephant, which will go extinct if we keep cutting down their forests.

The elephant can survive only if forests survive.

In a fragile environment, we need to be aware of ourselves as members of a uniquely powerful species living among other species who are quite as interesting as we are but vulnerable to us because we are cleverer in more destructive ways.

Endangered forests are being slaughtered for toilet paper.

Save the elephants, and then you save the forest - and then you save yourself.

Species conversation is beyond a doubt an issue that truly matters to the American public.

Congo, my country, has the largest forest in Africa, maybe the second-largest in the world. I was born in a forest area, and when I was growing up, I assisted my uncle, who was a poacher. That was good, because it grew my passion for protecting the forest and plants.

The rain forest has Sting. Now Siberia has Jack Dee. Someone had to draw the short straw. In this case it was the rain forest.

There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.

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.