Per agreement of the swords of justice, Virizion's duty was to protect forests and grasslands; that portion of the natural world which held the most interest to human expansion. It was unable to succeed in this task, partially because humans were capable of using flying pokemon against it, to which it has a severe weakness, but primarily because the distribution of the three swords' realms was flawed, and faced with the might of human expansion, Virizion's goal was from the start too much for a single pokemon to handle.

Although Virizion fought valiantly to protect Unova's forests from human encroachment, its defeats far outnumber its triumphs. The White, Pinwheel, and Lostlorn forests are a tiny relic of the expanse of trees which covered much of Unova before agriculture and urbanization. Unlike Cobalion and Terrakion, who are more often than not appreciated by humanity, Virizion is typically viewed as a vengeful god whose justice resembles Team Plasma's far more than that of a pokemon training world. For to avenge these defeats, Virizion at times resorted to tactics which even its comrades considered unjust, such as attacking settlements in recently deforested lands, or traveling far from home to strike back at lumber mills and other businesses which benefited from clear-cutting. It was forced to abandon these strategies quickly, for these tactics failed to intimidate humanity into surrender, and the retaliatory Virizion hunts destroyed far more than a simple defensive strategy would sacrifice.

Only with the rise of the conservation movement, and fear for the fate of Unova's forest pokemon, did Virizion at last reach an equilibrium with Man. In Virizion's defense, it must be noted that it abhorred Team Plasma's goals, and gave aid to the heroes who stopped them; it opposes environmental destruction, not pokemon training or humanity itself.