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Indeed, to develop agriculture is essentially to declare war on ecosystems — converting land to produce one or two food crops, with all other native plant species all now classified as unwanted 'weeds' — and all but a few domesticated species of animals now considered as pests.

— Niles Eldredge

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More quotes by Niles Eldredge

Agriculture represents the single most profound ecological change in the entire 3.5 billion-year history of life.

There is little doubt left in the minds of professional biologists that Earth is currently faced with a mounting loss of species that threatens to rival the five great mass extinctions of the geological past.

This explosion of human population, especially in the post-Industrial Revolution years of the past two centuries, coupled with the unequal distribution and consumption of wealth on the planet, is the underlying cause of the Sixth Extinction.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Niles Eldredge (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.