“The Lamarck Declaration”    written 1817

He wrote:    

 By his egoism too short-sighted for his own good, by his tendency to revel in all that is at his disposal, in short, by his lack for concern for the future and for his fellow man, man seems to work for the annihilation of his means of conservation and for the destruction of his own species. In destroying every where the large plants that protect the soil in order to secure things to satisfy his greediness of the moment man rapidly brings about the sterility of the ground on which he lives dries up the springs, and chases away  the animals that once found their subsistence there. He causes large parts of the globe that were once very fertile and well populated in all respects to become dead, sterile, uninhabitable, and deserted. Neglecting always the word of experience, abandoning himself to his passions, he is perpetually at war with his own kind, destroying them everywhere and under all pretexts, so that one sees formerly great populations become more and more diminished. One could say that he is destined to exterminate himself, after having rendered the globe uninhabitable.

This “Lamarck Declaration” could today be seen as the manifesto of a generation committed to saving the earth from the excesses of human habitation. Was Lamarck the first environmentalist?