All definitions of wilderness that exclude people seem to me to be false. African 'wilderness' areas are racist because indigenous people are being cleared out of them so white people can go on holiday there.
Jay GriffithsRead
The silencing of the rainforests is a double deforestation, not only of trees but a deforestation of the mind's music, medicine and knowledge.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the loss of biodiversity and cultural knowledge caused by deforestation and its impact on human consciousness.
Jay Griffiths' quote emphasizes that the destruction of rainforests represents a profound loss beyond just the physical trees; it signifies the erasure of the rich cultural and ecological knowledge that these environments embody. When rainforests are silenced, we lose not only their natural beauty and resources but also the wisdom and creativity that has been inspired by them throughout human history.
Themes
DeforestationRainforestsKnowledgeMindCulture
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a speech on environmental conservation to emphasize the importance of protecting both nature and culture.
More from Jay Griffiths
All quotes βSimilar quotes
I choose to listen to the river for a while, thinking river thoughts, before joining the night and the stars.
Edward AbbeyRead
Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths; the air fills with feathers.
Margaret AtwoodRead
Unlike Washington, which is stuck in ideological gridlock, Americans feel the impact of climate change in their own hometowns and they know something must be done.
John F. KerryRead
The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man.
Rachel CarsonRead
How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life?
Charles LindberghRead
The earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.
Chief SeattleRead