Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai speaks at Principia College
By Kim Bryant
For the St. Louis American
With a gate of thick forest securing the perimeter of the campus, it was fitting that Wangari Maathai, Ph.D. – whose tree-planting concept earned her the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize – delivered the keynote address at Principia College’s 7th Annual Pan African Conference last weekend, answering the question, “Can African women be pioneers of change?”
Maathai, the first African woman Nobel Peace laureate and pioneer of the Green Belt Movement, said, “Of course, women can be agents of change, and I think that what we have done with the Green Belt Movement is a good example of how we can be.”
With a balance of passion, wisdom, humor and hope, she discussed how mobilizing a group of women who collectively planted trees to conserve the environment and improve their quality of life expanded into the Green Belt Movement, a broad-based grass-roots organization.
Starting out, the women learned to plant trees through trial and error. “If they germinated, they were good,” Maathai said.
“Then, we learned how seeds germinate best. After some time, the women started teaching each other, and rules and regulations helped the women replicate the process many times.”
Their efforts led to the planting of more than 30 million trees in Kenya and the establishment of a pan-African outreach conservation program.
The movement began when Maathai realized that the environment in which she had grown up was being destroyed.
“In our great effort to catch up with the rest of the world, we were destroying our land,” she said.
In Kenya, exotic trees that supported industry for export began to replace indigenous species. However, these “water drinkers,” as the new trees were called, dried up the land, which brought drought and ultimately threatened livelihoods.
Though scrutinized for her innovations, Maathai insisted on paying the women for their work planting trees.
“Only women are expected to work for nothing,” she said.
“All of us should appreciate these trees. They provide oxygen, they prevent soil erosion, and if it is a fruit tree, we get fruit. It is important that we give them this incentive.”
Maathai believes that the Nobel committee’s recognition of her efforts sent a message that protecting and restoring the environment is directly related to securing peace. She said many conflicts arise over the competition for resources. She believes that the management of resources, government and peace are best viewed as the three legs of a traditional African stool, all needed equally for success.
Maathai said no one at first paid attention to the women planting seedlings, “But when they saw that we were planting ideas, they became worried,” she said.
The Kenyan government was opposed to educating and informing women, a fact she knew very well, having been the first woman to earn a doctorate in East and Central Africa. She went on to serve as an elected member of Parliament and the deputy minister of environment for Kenya and as a leader in the Economic, Social, and Cultural Council of the African Union. She also has authored a memoir, Unbowed.
This vocal group of women discovered who was partly responsible for the destruction of the forest.
“We had identified one enemy, the government, and that’s how the movement began,” she said.
The women organized to protect their forests from commercial exploitation and worked to hold their leaders accountable for the way they were managing the local environment. They often suffered beatings or were jailed for the cause.
Although she admitted she had no idea where it would lead, she has followed her own advice and “become the change that you want to see in the world.” To a nation of overconsumers, she stressed the concept of mottainai, a Japanese word meaning “what a waste!” and the use of the “Four R’s”: reduce, reuse, recycle and repair.
And, like the faithful humming bird in a fable she shared – who, though discouraged by better-equipped animals, worked diligently to put out a forest fire – she encouraged the audience to do their best.
“People think I know the answers, but I don’t,” she said.
“I just do my best and that, in my opinion, is all that we can do.”
