Wangari Muta Maathai, born in Nyeri, Kenya (1940) ultimately became the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a PhD (1971). She also became the first woman in her region to be a chair of the Department of Veterinarian Anatomy and to be an associate professor (1976). Seeing a political deficit and unmet needs by politicians, she entered politics and became an active member of the National Council of Women of Africa (1976-1987), which was where her idea of empowering women while rehabbing the environment was conceived, the birthchild of The Green Belt Movement. Over the years, she assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on farms and schools and church compounds, and by 1986 the Movement had become a Pan African Green Belt Network.
She became internationally recognized for her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation. On several occasions she addressed the UN on behalf of women. She authored articles, books, served on boards of several organizations, and in 2002 was elected to parliament with an overwhelming 98% of the vote. Subsequently she was appointed by the president as Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife in Kenya's 9th parliament.
In 2004 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Wangari Maathai "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace."
Her book Unbowed: A Memoir (2006, 2007) documents some moments that gave her a solid foundation of family and nature and which were fundamental in raising her awareness of a large escalating environmental problem ripping across the environment that had been so untroubled in her youth.
As the story goes, the name of Kenya was named by the explorers Johan Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann, when they encountered the awe-inspiring 17,000-foot-high mountain known today as Mount Kenya. "What do you call that?" they asked of their guide, and thinking the two were asking about the gourds he had in his hand, the guide answered, "Kii-nyaa", and thus the name of the mountain and the country became known by the colonial name and not the Kikuyus indigenous name of Kirinyaga, or Place of Brightness. Today the country of Kenya still feels the tug of conflict in their development and concept of self caused by the colonial and the indigenous ideas.
Before Wangari went to school, in her area the colonial government decided to establish commercial plantations of non-native trees. She remembers huge bonfires as the native fig trees went up in smoke. By the mid-1940s the British had introduced many exotic tree species to Kenya—pine in the north and eucalyptus and black wattle in the south. These trees grew fast and strong and contributed to the newly emerging timber business, but they eliminated local plants and destroyed the natural ecosystem. While the old trees had pierced deeply into the earth and allowed other trees and shrubs to thrive in their shadows, the new trees eliminated local plants and didn't retain the rainwater. Eventually, rivers and streams either dried up or were greatly reduced.
The native fig trees were strong trees, burrowing deeply into the ground, breaking through rock and into depressions and ultimately hitting water. It was known that wherever a fig grew, water would be found. Communities had great reverence for these trees and they were never used for fire wood. These trees held the soil together, reduced erosion and landslides. These trees brought life-sustaining water.
In the early 1970s Wangari realized that many ticks were affecting livestock. While gathering ticks from many places and going out in the rural areas, she noticed the people did not have good food but were eating the colonial flours and processed foods and because there was not enough firewood for cooking and preparing food, the crops were in drought because of loss of trees, the cattle were not well watered and certainly not the land. After looking at the people and the environment, she came up with the idea to give women jobs by planting trees, which would bind the soil, retain and collect water, be a home to birds and provided fruit and food for the people. Trees would heal the land and regenerate the vitality of the earth.
And thus began her journey of planting trees ... to foster a strong relationship between people and their land once again.
"I'm doing the best I can."
Wangari Maathai closed her book with a story she heart from a Professor Suji in Japan. One day a massive fire broke out in a forest and the animals, with flames coming closer, fled the forest, all of the animals except one, a tiny hummingbird who said, "I'm going to do something about the fire!" And she flew to the nearest stream and in her tiny beak scooped up a drop of water and flew to the conflagration, dropping her water droplet, and then flying back to the stream. The other animals watched in horror and dismay, "Why are you doing this? You cannot begin to put out the fire!" And the little hummingbird turned briefly to them and said, "I'm doing the best that I can!"
Wangari Maathai encourages everyone to work towards a better and greener world. She encourages everyone to plant, even if it's just one tree, just one tree at a time.
