(23 quotes found)
“When you have the environment degraded, it is always so that we are going to fight over the few resources that are left.”
Wangari Maathai
“The essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty, ... While we continue to debate these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter.”
“We are sharing our resources in a very inequitable way. In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.”
“We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind.”
“Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys from time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.”
“You must not deal only with the symptoms. You have to get to the root causes by promoting environmental rehabilitation and empowering people to do things for themselves. What is done for the people without involving them cannot be sustained.”
“We are very fond of blaming the poor for destroying the environment. But often it is the powerful, including governments, that are responsible.”
“If you want the future generations to live in peace, we must invest in the protection of the environment and we must train especially our young people so that they don't think, for example, the whole world is like Japan.”
“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.”
“We need to promote development that does not destroy our environment.”
