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Quotes by Environmentalist
"I did a salad, but I didn't do a garden."
134
"Along the borders to Ethiopia and Somalia, anarchy reigns, the police and military have retreated quite some distance."
125
"Elephants can live to an age of up to 70 or 80 years and they have a good memory. It could be they come across an area that is experiencing a drought. Then they continue on their path and run into people."
105
"Whether or not all this came to pass in an East African ditch, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it happened in North Africa or further west, but Africa was definitely the place."
103
"One should not forget that there are very few surviving items from this period, often just single, small bones, a tooth, a sliver of the skull. Categorizing these pieces can be very difficult."
102
"Paleoanthropology is not a science that ends with the discovery of a bone. One has to have the original to work with. It is a life-long task."
99
"The elephants were being slaughtered in masses. Some were even killed in the vicinity of big tourist hotels."
99
"It is virtually impossible to control Northern Kenya, which is populated chiefly by migrant nomads."
98
"I would hazard a guess that we have found fossilized human remains of at least a thousand different specimens in South and East Africa, more or less complete at that. I think this is where the prelude to human history was primarily played out."
95
"We think that groups of between 30 and 40 early men would have settled in an area measuring a hundred square kilometers."
Men,
92
"Primates need good nutrition, to begin with. Not only fruits and plants, but insects as well."
91
"Earlier, 100,000 elephants lived in Kenya and we didn't have any noteworthy problem with it. The problem that we have is not that there are now more elephants."
Now,
87
"We hope to find more pieces of the puzzle which will shed light on the connection between this upright, walking ape, our early ancestor, and modern man."
87
"We are concerned that, in a few years time, this place of discovery, with its wealth of human fossils, the like of which can be found nowhere else in the world, could be completely destroyed."
87
"A number of scientists with greatly different backgrounds can come up with completely different assessments. The discussions or controversies are endless. Once a year, we try to bring the most important discoverers together to exchange their experiences and knowledge."
85
"I can't think of any other region in the world which is such a vast source of fossils."
78
"The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort."
54
"For fossils to thrive, certain favorable circumstances are required. First of all, of course, remnants of life have to be there. These then need to be washed over with water as soon as possible, so that the bones are covered with a layer of sediment."
52
"Industry is fortune's right hand, and frugality its left."
52
"I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do."
51
"The land is not in the least bit fertile and yet the cattle herds grow larger and larger. A cow represents capital investment here."
51
"To investigate the history of man's development, the most important finds are, of course, hominid fossils."
48
"Everyone except the far right wing of the Republican Party realizes that oil, gas and coal burning are the main activities that have sent the climate into bigger floods, droughts, hurricanes, and El Ninos."
47
"Nothing is invented and perfected at the same time."
47
"Sadly, I am not able to take part in the fieldwork myself so much anymore, as both of my legs were amputated following an airplane crash twelve years ago."
47
"The problem is that during the 1980s, a decade of heavy poaching, the elephants retreated to safer areas. And now people have moved into the corridors once used by the elephants."
46
"Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we'll soon be in trouble."
45
"We've pumped waste into cavities in solid rock and found that it spread through the rock."
44
"The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected."
44
"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want."
44
"Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart."
44
"To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world."
43
"Intelligent policies will be largely self-regulating in the sense that the system of incentives and standards makes it absolutely ludicrous to not move towards clean, internalized systems of cost and production."
43
"Security depends not so much upon how much you have, as upon how much you can do without."
43
"A knowledgeable and courageous U.S. president could help enormously in leading the world's nations toward saving the climate."
42
"Birds have wings; they're free; they can fly where they want when they want. They have the kind of mobility many people envy."
42
"And also, more and more businesses really want to do the right thing. They feel better about themselves, their workers feel better, and so do their customers. I think this is equally true in the transnational corporations, but it is harder to express in those situations."
42
"Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them."
42
"No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means."
41
"On the recollection of so many and great favours and blessings, I now, with a high sense of gratitude, presume to offer up my sincere thanks to the Almighty, the Creator and Preserver."
40
"A garden is a complex of aesthetic and plastic intentions; and the plant is, to a landscape artist, not only a plant - rare, unusual, ordinary or doomed to disappearance - but it is also a color, a shape, a volume or an arabesque in itself."
40
"It is not ignorance but knowledge which is the mother of wonder."
40
"You should issue demerits for tree cutting or the destruction of humus."
39
"The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them."
39
"Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there."
39
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