This study reveals several definitions, meanings, and values that people have of deforestation and in so doing shows why some global perspectives do not connect with local consciousness. To show how deforestation can have many meanings and why global and local consciousness often do not connect, the episode of deforestation was described from three relative time scales. These are the geologic time of environmental history, the human activity time frames of human projects, and environmental perception or the time span of meanings and values attributed to perceived phenomena. These three levels of inquiry provide the dynamics in terms of which the significance of an eclectic approach might be assessed.