30 Deforestation Quotes To Read To Value Every Tree

"A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth."
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

"The cutting of primeval forest and other disasters, fueled by the demands of growing human populations, are the overriding threat to biological diversity everywhere."
- Edward O. Wilson

"Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects."
- E. O. Wilson

"The trees are man’s best friends; but man has treated them as his worst enemies. The history of our race may be said to be the history of warfare upon the tree world. But while man has seemed to be the victor, his victories have brought upon him inevitable disasters."
- Nathaniel H. Egleston

"The answer is simple. If we lose the world's forests, we lose the fight against climate change. Rainforests are our Earth's greatest utility – our planet's lungs, thermostat and air-conditioning system."
- Michael Somare

"One thing leads to the other. Deforestation leads to climate change, which leads to ecosystem losses, which negatively impacts our livelihoods – it’s a vicious cycle."
- Gisele Bundchen

"Deforestation is changing our climate, harming people and the natural world. We must, and can reverse this trend."
- Jane Goodall

"Worldwide, we have now destroyed over half of the forest that once flourished on our planet. Not only are we losing the animals that once lived on them, we're also changing the climate of the entire globe."
- David Attenborough

"By felling the trees which cover the tops and sides of mountains, men in all climates seem to bring upon future generations two calamities at once; want of fuel and a scarcity of water."
- Baron Alexander von Humboldt

"You hear headlines from time to time about the Amazon rainforest disappearing at a greater or lesser rate.... The real story is that over time the rate has stayed just the same. Year after year, decade after decade, we have failed to stop or really even decrease deforestation."
- Patrick Symmes

"Silencing of the rainforests is a double deforestation, not only of trees but a deforestation of the mind's music, medicine and knowledge."
- Jay Griffiths

"We are consuming our forests three times faster than they are being reproduced. Some of the richest timber lands of this continent have already been destroyed, and not replaced, and other vast areas are on the verge of destruction. Yet forests, unlike mines, can be so handled as to yield the best results of use, without exhaustion, just like grain fields."
- Theodore Roosevelt

"In general, the well-off have the money to outsource their deforesting as they buy food and other commodities grown by clearing land in other countries. As we have seen, they don't stop deforesting, they just do it somewhere far from home."
- Fred Pearce

"Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species—man—acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world."
- Rachel Carson

"Forests are the world’s air-conditioning system – the lungs of the planet – and we are on the verge of switching it off."
- Prince Charles

"Even environmentalists seem more concerned about the loss of a year or so of life expectation through cancer than they are about the degradation of the natural world by deforestation or greenhouse gases—something that could cause the death of our grandchildren."
- James E. Lovelock

"Humanity is cutting down its forests, apparently oblivious to the fact that we may not live without them."
- Issac Asimov

"What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another."
- Mahatma Gandhi

"Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting a tree is simple"
- Martin O'Malley

"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."
- Paul Polman

"It’s well-known that the trick to reducing net carbon emissions relies on not emitting so much of the stuff and finding a way to get it back where it belongs."
- Max Ajl

"The commitment to put an end to illegal deforestation and develop sustainable alternatives for commodities like palm oil and soy, for example, is an inspiring illustration of what can be achieved when governments and industry partners come together determined to bring about transformational market-wide changes."
- Paul Polman

"The axe and saw are insanely busy, chips are flying thick as snowflakes, and every summer thousands of acres of priceless forests, with their underbrush, soil, springs, climate, scenery, and religion, are vanishing away in clouds of smoke, while, except in the national parks, not one forest guard is employed."
- John Muir

"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools."
- John Muir

"During a man’s life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees—tens of centuries old—that have been destroyed."
- John Muir

"By destroying the animals, the air, and the trees, we are destroying ourselves."
- Thích Nhất Hạnh

"Sadly, it's much easier to create a desert than a forest."
- James Lovelock

"Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people."
- Franklin Roosevelt

"The forest is not a resource for us, it is life itself. It is the only place for us to live."
- Evaristo Nugkuag Ikanan

"Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal."
- E.O. Wilson