Cool Conservation Quotes, Vol. 4

The most prosperous nation of to-day is the United States. Our unexampled wealth and well-being are directly due to the superb natural resources of our country, and to the use which has been made of them by our citizens, both in the present and in the past. We are prosperous because our forefathers bequeathed to us a land of marvellous resources still unexhausted. Shall we conserve those resources, and in turn transmit them, still unexhausted, to our descendants?

Unless we do, those who come after us will have to pay the price of misery, degradation, and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day. When the natural resources of any nation become exhausted, disaster and decay in every department of national life follow as a matter of course. Therefore the conservation of natural resources is the basis, and the only permanent basis, of national success. There are other conditions, but this one lies at the foundation.

--- Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation (1910)

Cool Conservation Quotes, Vol. 3

Conservation finance is the best place where people, land, and money meet. It is populated with individuals who are passionate about land and are contributing special skills and great new ideas to its protection. Most are people of conservation organizations responding with ingenuity to the pressure to stretch limited funds for greater outcomes. However, new diversity is entering the conservation finance scene. Some of these new participants work behind cash registers at local retail enterprises. Others are realtors and developers. Some are commercial and investment bankers who may look a little out of place in their gray suits with Wall Street Journals tucked under their arms.

--- Story Clark, A Field Guide to Conservation Finance (2007)

Clark's next book, New Financial Options for Conserving Land, is scheduled to be published by Island Press in October 2009.

Cool Conservation Quotes, Vol. 2

The less of our landscape there is to save, the better our chances of saving it. It is a shame we have to lose so much land to learn the lesson, but desecration does seem a prerequisite for action. People have to be outraged. Most of the new land-use legislation and the pioneering programs did not come about as the result of foresighted, thoughtful analysis. They came about because people got mad over something they could see. Some of the most significant legislation can be traced to a small local outrage – a line of trees being chopped down for a highway, a meadow being asphalted for a parking area.

--- William H. Whyte, The Last Landscape (1968)

Cool Conservation Quotes, Vol. 1

Shady Glade was a towering sycamore and a cluster of willows and cottonwoods along the banks of a winding creek. Early every spring hundreds of birds flocked into the treetops to build their nests, raise their young, and then go their way at the end of summer.

The year round population of the glade was no more than sixteen: half a dozen rabbits, a pair of possums, a single skunk, five green frogs, one bullfrog, and an old raccoon. They lived there together in a peaceful neighborly fashion. These simple woodland creatures were content to believe that nothing could ever spoil their quiet little world. They hardly noticed the big city looming up to the sky way off in the distance.

Then one spring day there came a deep rumbling sound. ...

--- Opening lines of Farewell to Shady Glade, by Bill Peet (1966). Written to raise awareness of environmental problems, the book is dedicated “To Rachel Carson with the hope that the new generation will carry on her all-important work toward preserving what is left of our natural world."