After performing multiple searches for the phrase I finally found it listed in The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (2009) which simply stated that it was a “Native American saying”. The earliest example given in the reference was dated 1983 and appeared in the book “America Born and Reborn” by H. Wasserman, who labeled it an “Osage saying”. I was hoping that these provocative words of wisdom were older. Could you try to trace this saying further back in time?
Quote Investigator: The earliest instance located by QI was in a collection of essays published in 1972 titled “Who is the Chairman of This Meeting?” A chapter called “Conversations with North American Indians” contained comments made by Alanis Obomsawin who was described as “an Abenaki from the Odanak reserve, seventy odd miles northeast of Montreal.” (The book uses the spelling Obomosawin.) Obomsawin employed a version of the saying while speaking with the chapter author Ted Poole. [AOTP]:
Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.
In later years Obomsawin became famous as an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in Canada.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1894 the importance of conserving natural resources was recognized and expressed in a report by the State Fish and Game Commissioner of North Dakota. The report cautioned that short-term thinking and narrow monetary motivations might lead to the destruction of the “last tree” and the “last fish”. The following passage shows thematic similarities to the quotation under investigation [LFND]:
Present needs and present gains was the rule of action—which seems to be a sort of transmitted quality which we in our now enlightened time have not wholly outgrown, for even now a few men can be found who seem willing to destroy the last tree, the last fish and the last game bird and animal, and leave nothing for posterity, if thereby some money can be made.
In 1972 the remarks of Alanis Obomsawin were published in the volume “Who is the Chairman of This Meeting?” The details were listed previously in this article [AOTP].
In November 1972 a version of the saying was used by another Native American who presented a talk at Harvard University as reported in the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson [PSHC]:
Thomas Parker, whose Indian name is Sakokwenonkwas, was the main speaker of the program. He said that he and the other Mohawks were from the Akwesasne reservation on the New York-Canada border. …
“Someday President Nixon and the other world leaders are going to find out that once they catch the last fish, once they cut down the last tree, they won’t be able to eat all the money they have in the banks,” he added. [Footnote A]
It is not clear to QI whether the expression was crafted by Obomsawin, Sakokwenonkwas, or a third person. The lead time for publication of a book can be long, so Obomsawin probably used the words before Sakokwenonkwas spoke at Harvard.
In 1981 two Greenpeace members climbed a smelter smokestack that was more than 500-feet tall according to an Associated Press report. Their goal was “to protest emissions of arsenic and sulfur dioxide,” and they unfurled an enormous 80-by-20-foot sign. The expression displayed on the smokestack was not ascribed to anyone in particular [GPLF]:
As one of the longest banners we’ve ever made summed things up, “When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can’t eat money…”
In 1983 an advertisement for the Greenpeace organization that was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald employed a version of the saying. The words were used without attribution in a section titled “Why do we bother?” [GPSH]:
Greenpeace believes that after the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned and the last fish dead, you will find you can’t eat your money. In that interest, we strive to bring public and legal pressure against those who pollute the environment, deplete our resources and threaten rare species for private profit.
As noted by the questioner a version of the expression appeared in the valuable reference work “The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs” which provided citations beginning in 1983 [OXLF] [OXDP].
In 1995 a letter written to the New York Times employed the saying and attributed it to the “Cree Indians” [NYCI]: