The central expression of philosophical Taoism is the Tao Te Ching, also known as the Lao Tzu. We will limit our search for passages that may be construed to pertain to environmental issues to Book I or the first 37 of 81 chapters. This passage suggests a quiet and simple way of life, a way of living that is not premised on notoriety. The counsel here is clear. Goods too hard to come by are better left where they are, and the reputations that can be made by taking from the Earth what is hard to get through ingenuity and cleverness are not to be coveted.
Desire unsettles the mind and perverts behavior.
Honoring people of worth promotes divisiveness. Therefore, it is better for a person sensitive to the Tao to live unobtrusively. From an environmental point of view, this means interfering with Nature as little as possible. Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail. Again, the idea is to interfere with the natural course of events as little as possible.