On Earth Day in 1977, Dr. Maathai started the The Greenbelt Movement after listening to women from rural Kenya talk about their concerns. The women remembered a time when they didn’t have to travel far for firewood, when their crops sustained their health. Now, the women told her, their children were suffering from malnutrition, their drinking water was polluted and they didn’t have firewood. Dr. Maathai, working with National Council of Women, gave these women seedlings. She paid the women to cultivate these seedlings into trees that in turn would stop soil erosion, provide shade, firewood and nutrition.
Twenty-three years later, 15 million trees have been planted. Planting of these trees means more than restoring Kenya to its natural state. It means restoring pride to the people and empowering Kenyans to build a sustainable environment for themselves. The tree planting has also generated income for the rural Kenyans, who now run nurseries and have become skilled in forestry management.
“I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me,” Dr. Maathai says. It’s the God in her that has propelled the Greenbelt movement to spread to other African countries, Haiti, and The United States. In 1989, Dr. Maathai opposed the construction of a sixty-story building in the middle of a park. She also opposed the destruction of fifty acres of forest to allow roses to be grown for export. Her efforts haven’t been without risk. “You cannot fight for the environment without eventually getting into conflict with people in power,” she says. She was clubbed in a 1989 demonstration and again in 1999. Both times required hospitalization. She’s been threatened by parliamentarians with female mutilation to make her behave more like a woman.
None of this has stopped Wangari Maathai. “At this particular moment, I am only seeing one thing – that I’m moving in the right direction.” Dr. Maathai is proof of the strength of one person. She travels all over the world spreading her word. She’s helping the people take back their power and their ability to live off their land.
Go To Page: 1 2
