Soil, not oil, holds the future for humanity.

When you don't take into account the way ecological systems work, then you do damage.

My father had been a forester and I had grown up on those hills. I had seen forests and streams disappear. I jumped into Chipko movement and started to work with the peasant women. I learned from them about what forests mean for a rural woman in India in terms of firewood and fodder and medicinal plants and rich knowledge.

We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.

I'm a woman, born the daughter of a feminist and the granddaughter of a feminist grandfather. I don't think I could have avoided working on women's issues. I don't do it as a career or profession; it's my very essence as a human being.

Population control is not an issue involving contraceptives for third world women. It is an issue of ecological justice.

Today the environmental movement has become opposed to issues of justice. You can see this in the way issues are framed. It's a permanent replay of jobs-versus-the-environment, in nature-versus-bread. These are extremely artificial dichotomies.