Ecological Restoration Quotations

"We have a mighty task before us. The earth needs our assistance."
Laurens van der Post

"We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization."
Al Gore - 'Earth in the Balance'

"The wounds we have inflicted on the Earth can be healed ... But if it is to be done, it must be done now. Otherwise, it may never be done at all."
Jonathon Porritt - 'Save The Earth'

"We have the physical resources and technically there is no reason why governments could not have enough money to initiate the repair and restoration of the planet's ecological lifelines. The most significant question is: Can such an undertaking attract the minds and hearts of literally hundreds of thousands of men and women who can grasp the vision of a new world, capable of sustaining humanity into the distant future? Without such men and women all technical solutions, no matter how correct, cannot succeed."
Roger Limerick - The Fireweed Project

"I know of no restorative of heart, body, and soul more effective against hopelessness than the restoration of the Earth."
Barry Lopez - 'Helping Nature Heal'

"Ecological restoration, allied with the creation of ecosystem-scale wilderness reserves, represents the main hope that the organic quality of wildness may someday be resurrected in human souls and in all life-places on planet Earth."
Stephanie Mills - 'In Service of the Wild'

"Richness and diversity of life-forms ... are ... values in themselves. Richness means we have to have an abundance of life of all kinds. We have to replenish the earth."
Arne Naess

"Wilderness recovery, I firmly believe, is the most important task of our generation."
Reed Noss

"Our greatest challenge is to begin the awesome task of healing the earth and transforming human consciousness while there is still time. In the restoration of the earth we will realise our true human potentials and rejoice not in our own creations, but with all creation in empathetic resonance and communion ..."
Dr. Michael Fox

"There is a whole new economy more vital to our survival than armaments; more attainable than space flight; more logical than the future that now faces us. It is the repair and restoration of our life support systems and the creation of a sustainable planet. We merely need the technical direction and a pliable enough monetary system which can respond to the challenge."
Roger Limerick - The Fireweed Project

"...today it is the duty of every thinking being to live, and to serve not only his own day and generation, but also generations unborn by helping to restore and maintain the green glory of the forests of the earth."
Richard St. Barbe Baker

"... the very process of the restoring the land to health is the process through which we become attuned to Nature and, through Nature, with ourselves. Restoration forestry, therefore, is both the means and the end, for as we learn how to restore the forest, we heal the forest, and as we heal the forest, we heal ourselves."
Chris Maser - 'Forest Primeval'

"Reforesting the earth is possible, given a human touch."
Sandra Postel and Lori Heise - 'Worldwatch Paper 83'

"Restoration ecology is experimental science, a science of love and altruism. In its attempts to reverse the processes of ecosystem degradation it runs exactly counter to the market system, to land speculation, to the whole cultural attitude of regarding the Earth as commodity rather than community. It is a soft-souled science."
Stephanie Mills

"I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am. Use no more of its resources than I need. And listen, listen to what it is telling me."
M.J. Slim Hooey

"The forests are dying, the rivers are dying, and we are called to act. To return Earth to harmony is to restore the harmonious principles within ourselves and to act as responsible caretakers - to save the forests and the waters for future generations."
Dhyani Ywahoo

Principles of Ecological Restoration

Published: October 1999
Last updated: 25 August 2010