Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

Our forests are not for toilet paper. They are worth more standing than cut. That deserves to be defended, not only by native peoples but also by environmentalists.

Most of our political support for forest preservation comes from the Northeast where there are few forests. The Americans back East realize that they have made a historical mistake and failed to preserve and protect their original forests, and they don’t want the rest of the country to make the same mistake.

As a nation we have not yet come to have a proper respect for the forest and to regard it as an indispensable part of our resources—one which is easily destroyed but difficult to replace; one which confers great benefits while it endures, but whose disappearance is accompanied by a train of evil consequences not readily foreseen and positively irreparable.

Timber extraction provides big profits at the expense of local communities. Providing communities with unfettered access to harvest a forest that is protected in perpetuity provides better and more reliable incomes.

We have now felled forest enough everywhere, in many districts far too much. Let us restore this one element of material life to its normal proportions, and devise means for maintaining the permanence of its relations to the fields, the meadows and the pastures, to the rain and the dews of heaven, to the springs and rivulets with which it waters down the earth.

If there is any one duty which more than another we owe it to our children and our children's children to perform at once, it is to save the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and most important element in the conservation of the natural resources of this country.

A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless; forests which are so used that they cannot renew themselves will soon vanish, and with them all their benefits. A true forest is not merely a storehouse full of wood, but, as it were, a factory of wood and at the same time a reservoir of water. When you help to preserve our forests or plant new ones you are acting the part of good citizens.

I was born in northeastern China, where we have the privilege to see forests just out of the window. And I thought, I am going to do something because I cannot imagine my hometown without forests, and I cannot imagine the earth turned into a desert. From that day on, environment protection weighs the same in my life as my professional acting career.

Maintaining healthy forests is essential to those who make a living from the land and for those of us who use them for recreational purposes.

The forests shall not be burned needlessly.

Every acre of forest should belong to the people.

We can halt the destruction of the world's rainforests - and even restore parts of them - in order to ensure that the forests do what they are so good at - in other words, storing carbon naturally.

We've all got to come together, and we've got to protect what's left of our ancient forests on this planet.

In studying the fate of our forest king, we have thus far considered the action of purely natural causes only; but, unfortunately, man is in the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of the forests were even vaguely understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government

The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong.

Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting a tree is simple.

If I have my way, I'm going to dissolve the Forest Service. They're in the business of harvesting trees and they're not harvesting trees, so why have them anymore?

Creating mechanisms for ending deforestation and promoting regeneration of the environment is one of the most effective ways of achieving net-zero emissions.

You have to focus on what you're passionate about. For me it's the forests and of course, because I'm concerned about the forests, I'm concerned about the way paper is made.

No-one wants polluted air, water or land, denuded forests or extinct animal species. But the error most people make is to trust the legislature to prevent these tragedies. What they don’t realize is how big a role the legislature has played historically in causing environmental destruction.

There is more old growth forest today in California today than there was in 1850. The Indians had destroyed most of them.

You cannot, for instance, sustainably protect the environment if the majority of the people are still in primitive agriculture leading to the encroachment of forest reserves.

Our forest policy is not to preserve forests because they are beautiful—though that is a good in itself—not to preserve them because they are refuges for wild creatures of the wilderness—though that is a good in itself—but rather to conserve them in order to guarantee a steady and continuous supply of timber, grass, and above all, water.

Every other civilized nation in the world has been compelled to care for its forests, and so must we if waste and destruction are not to go on to the bitter end, leaving America as barren as Palestine or Spain.

If we tackle deforestation in the right way, the benefits will be far-reaching - greater food security, improved livelihoods for millions of small farmers and indigenous people, more prosperous rural economies, and above all, a more stable climate.