Ecologist Quotes

We may think of volcanic islands like Ascension as unusual because their recent origin and remoteness mean their ecosystems are made up of a motley crew of mariner migrants. But much of the world is like that. Nature is constantly in flux, and few ecosystems go back very far. Only ten thousand years ago, much of Europe and North America were covered in thick ice. All soil had been scraped away and with it most forms of life. Everything we see today in these former glaciated zones has either returned or arrived for the first time since the ice retreated.
Looked at from this perspective, the spread of alien species today is merely a continuation of a natural process of the colonization begun when the ice retreated. A broad time horizon shows there is no such thing as a native species. All lodgings are temporary and all ecosystems in a constant flux, the victims of circumstance and geological accident. As the pioneer British ecologist Charles Elton argued, "Were it not for the ice age, we [in Britain] should probably have wonderful mixed forests with wild magnolias and laurels and epiphytic orchids, such as . . . in China. ~ Fred Pearce

In a manner which matches the fortuity, if not the consequence, of Archimedes' bath and Newton's apple, the [3.6 million year old] fossil footprints were eventually noticed one evening in September 1976 by the paleontologist Andrew Hill, who fell while avoiding a ball of elephant dung hurled at him by the ecologist David Western. ~ John Reader

There is still quite a lot of life out there, but it is mostly very small. According to a wildlife census by an ecologist at the University of Illinois named V. E. Shelford, a typical ten-square-mile block of eastern American forest holds almost 300,000 mammals - 220,000 mice and other small rodents, 63,500 squirrels and chipmunks, 470 deer, 30 foxes, and 5 black bears. ~ Bill Bryson

The idea of a non-growing economy may be an anathema to an economist. But the idea of a continually growing economy is an anathema to an ecologist. ~ Tim Jackson

My work as an ecologist, a writer, a mother, as a traveler between scientific and traditional ways of knowing, grows from the power of those words. It reminds me of who we are; it reminds me of our gifts and our responsibility to those gifts. Ceremony is a vehicle for belonging - to a family, to a people, and to the land. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

If there was a time when 'The Ecologist' appeared not to be making a difference at all, not doing something useful, I wouldn't do 'The Ecologist,' but I think it is useful. ~ Zac Goldsmith

'The Ecologist' has lost money from the day it was launched in 1970, and will continue until the last edition is printed. It was never set up as a business venture. It was set up as a campaign, and like all good campaigns, it costs. Its various backers have, over the years, been happy to pay that cost. ~ Zac Goldsmith

By uploading 40 years of 'Ecologist' editions online, we will be creating the world's most extensive ecological archive. 'The Ecologist' will continue to set the environmental and political agenda here and abroad. ~ Zac Goldsmith

NASA's Office of Commercial Exploration has been concerned about protecting the landing zones where humans first walked on the Moon, and one of my colleagues, ecologist Margaret Race, has been part of their deliberations. ~ Seth Shostak

Nobody can legitimately claim to be a marine ecologist and conservationist while continuing to eat fish. It is the ultimate form of hypocrisy. ~ Paul Watson

According to Indian crop ecologist Vandana Shiva, humans have eaten some 80,000 plant species in our history. After recent precipitous changes, three-quarters of all human food now comes from just eight species, with the field quickly narrowing down to genetically modified corn, soy, and canola. If woodpeckers and pandas enjoy celebrity status on the endangered-species list (dubious though such fame may be), food crops are the forgotten commoners. We're losing them as fast as we're losing rain forests. An enormous factor in this loss has been the new idea of plant varieties as patentable properties, rather than God's gifts to humanity or whatever the arrangement was previously felt to be, for all of prior history. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Where there is a smoke, there is an ecologist. ~ Ljupka Cvetanova

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise. ~ Aldo Leopold

For example, the idea that objects have properties out there in fixed ways is an incorrect idea about the world. Properties are created through relationships and processes. They are not inherent in electrons or photons or quanta any more than they are inherent in soil or trees or people. So my critique of reductionistic science is a critique that I have inherited from my scientific training. But it has been deepened by my experiences as an ecologist, in seeing the ecological destruction taking place today. ~ Vandana Shiva

A marine ecologist is a scientist who studies the many species that live underwater and how they interact with each other and with humans. ~ Enric Sala

I'm first and foremost a biological explorer. I've looked all over the world for answers. Secondly, I'm an ecological designer, and by that I mean I attempt to work with constellations of nature to create technological forms. So I'm part engineer, part ecologist, part inventor, really. ~ John Todd

The ecologist has a much more comprehensive and holistic view of the world. We're looking at the natural environment as well as the human built environment and the connectivity between the two - how do the natural environment and the human-built environment interact and interface with each other. ~ Ken Yeang

I became an ecologist long before I had ever heard the word, ~ Chico Mendes

It would be wonderful if all the salmon we eat could be wild. But as one marine ecologist said to me recently, to continue to eat large wild fish at the rate we've been eating them we would need "four or five" oceans to support the crrent human population. ~ Paul Greenberg

For the social ecologist language is not "communication." It is not just "message." It is substance. It is the cement that holds humanity together. It creates community and communication. Social ecologists need not be "great" writers; but they have to be respectful writers, caring writers. ~ Peter Drucker