Callum Roberts > Quotes

“Extinction, the irrevocable loss of a species, causes pain that can never find relief. It is an ache that will pass from generation to generation for the rest of human history.”
― Callum Roberts, The Unnatural History of the Sea

“In the European Union, the relationship between politicians and the fishing industry has become like that of a doctor assisting the suicide of a patient.”
― Callum Roberts, The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea

“Early accounts of the abundance of fish and wildlife offer us a window to the past that helps reveal the magnitude of subsequent declines. They provide us with benchmarks against which we can compare the condition of today's seas. Such benchmarks are valuable in countering the phenomenon of shifting environmental baselines, whereby each generation comes to view the environment into which it was born as natural, or normal. Shifting environmental baselines cause a collective societal amnesia in which gradual deterioration of the environment and depletion of wildlife populations pass almost unnoticed. Our expectations diminish with time, and with them goes our will to do something about the losses.”
― Callum Roberts, The Unnatural History of the Sea

“the oceans have changed more in the last thirty years than in all of human history before.”
― Callum Roberts, The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea