“At our feet, the present: horror. On perhaps three hundred hectares, all vegetation has disappeared. Nothing remains but a sore of red earth, bristling with paler stumps. From time to time, a lone tree rises high towards the sky, like a hair, obscene. I have seen battlefields. For example the Chemin des Dames. I know how to recognize the presence of death. I find myself there.
(…)
Act II: the future: as far as the eye can see, rows of small green balls, by tens of thousands, oil palm trees, all alike, a dictator's dream: the society of plants, infinitely diverse and complex, transformed into an army order and similarity.
(…)
Where I am, the area is classified as a "corridor", that is, protected to allow large animals to move from one forest area to another, the only guarantee for their survival. I am given the figures in a neutral voice. There would only be one hundred and forty-five rhinos and two hundred and fifty tigers left on the whole island. And the population of our cousins orangutans (words that mean "people" or "men" or "forest peoples") has declined by 50% over the past 20 years. There would be only 5,000 left. "

Erik Orsenna (2012), On the paper route: a brief overview of globalization III, Stock, p264-265