Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
Trees are worth more alive than dead
That's the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.
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.
Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rainforests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?
When this is over...we will got to the rainforest, or a beach as white as bone. We will eat grapes from the vine, we will swim with sea turtles, we will walk miles on cobblestone streets. We will laugh and talk and confess. We will.
My Rainforests Project ... has three main elements. Firstly, to determine how much funding the rainforest countries need to re-orientate their economies so that the trees are worth more alive than dead.
The simple fact is that the world is not paying for the services the forests provide. At the moment, they are worth more dead than alive-for soya, for beef, for palm oil and for logging, feeding the demand from other countries. ... I think we need to be clear that the drivers of rainforest destruction do not originate in the rainforest nations, but in the more developed countries which, unwittingly or not, have caused climate change.
Forests ... are in fact the world's air-conditioning system-the very lungs of the planet-and help to store the largest body of freshwater on the planet ... essential to produce food for our planet's growing population. The rainforests of the world also provide the livelihoods of more than a billion of the poorest people on this Earth... In simple terms, the rainforests, which encircle the world, are our very life-support system-and we are on the verge of switching it off.
At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rain forest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity
It's not just global warming, it's not just a loss of biodiversity, it's not just the pollution of our oceans and the clearing of our rainforests and all these complicated systems, The [11th Hour] movie talks about the world economy, it talks about politics, it talks about personal transformation and environmental consciousness that we need to have in this generation to implement a lot of these changes that need to occur.
We are destroying the world's greatest pharmacy. It is very important that we protect the rainforest in everything that we do.
For Australians, climate change is no longer a distant threat. Our rivers are dying, bush fires are more ferocious and more frequent and our natural wonders - the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, our rainforests - are now at risk.
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.
The world's forests need to be seen for what they are - giant global utilities, providing essential public services to humanity on a vast scale. They store carbon, which is lost to the atmosphere when they burn, increasing global warming. The life they support cleans the atmosphere of pollutants and feeds it with moisture. They act as a natural thermostat, helping to regulate our climate and sustain the lives of 1.4 billion of the poorest people on this Earth.
It doesn't take a genius to pump up the GNP [of a developing country] by burning down rainforests, using slave labor and social repression to keep things in place.
I became an actor at a very young age, but I also had a deep respect for nature and I think I was sort of a little biologist when I was younger. I watched documentaries on rainforest pollution and the loss of species and habitats for animals around the world. It affected me in a very hardcore, emotional way when I was younger. So, later in life I wanted to continue that path more and investigate and learn more about ecological issues.
Fair Trade supports some of the most bio-diverse farming systems in the world. When you visit a Fair Trade coffee grower's fields, with the forest canopy overhead and the sound of migratory songbirds in the air, it feels like you're standing in the rainforest.
I will defend the absolute value of Mozart over Miley Cyrus, of course I will, but we should be wary of false dichotomies. You do not have to choose between one or the other. You can have both. The human cultural jungle should be as varied and plural as the Amazonian rainforest. We are all richer for biodiversity. We may decide that a puma is worth more to us than a caterpillar, but surely we can agree that the habitat is all the better for being able to sustain each.
That's the trouble with the world we live in. It's full of people just doing their job and ignoring what's really going on. Care about the rainforest until they get a couple of kids and enough money for a gas guzzling car, or some hardwood dining furniture. Watch all those wildlife programmes and coo over the furry animals, but still eat meat and poultry that was raised in conditions of unbelievable cruelty.
or simply:
