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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.

— 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.

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.

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.

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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.