Aldo Leopold Quotes

We learned that economic growth and environmental protection can and should go hand in hand.

Every time there is an economic intensification, there is an ecological impact.

The current challenge facing the environmental authorities is how to properly deal with the environmental problems caused by economic development.

At an ever accelerating rate we are now squandering the capital of metallic ores and fossil fuels accumulated in the earth’s crust during hundreds of millions of years. How long can this spending spree go on?

Conservation is not without a cost.

We are living beyond our means. As a people we have developed a life-style that is draining the earth of its priceless and irreplaceable resources without regard for the future of our children and people all around the world.

As hundreds of millions of Chinese have improved their standard of living, this has put enormous pressure on natural resources, raw materials, and food basics, among others.

We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital - the resource systems upon which we depend to live - instead of our human capital.

After all, sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital.

Unless we keep this planet healthy, everything else is for naught.

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

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.

We assume that everything's becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that's true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources.

Address these environmental issues and you will address every issue known to man. And we keep dabbling in things that aren't really that important in the long term.

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.

I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?

Nature will take precedence over the needs of the modern man.

Not all is doom and gloom. We are beginning to understand the natural world and are gaining a reverence for life - all life.

I do believe very strongly that all of us and all of the other things in the context of our planet with Mother Nature, all of these things absolutely have a profound effect.

The future will either be green or not at all.

What I have experienced over time is that environmental problems are easier to deal with in ways that don't go into their interconnections to the rest of what we are.

Man is complex—he makes deserts bloom and lakes die.

In many developing countries environmental problems are relegated to the periphery because they do not appear to be as urgent as other issues … We cannot survive without clean drinking water, food and pure air. Environmental concerns are not a luxury in Africa.

Ecological policy rejects exploitative forms of economy and the unscrupulous plundering of natural resources and raw materials, as well as the destructive interventions into nature's ability to renew itself. We believe that the exploitation of nature as well as human beings must be stopped if we are to master this acute threat to life on earth.