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By Rashme Sehgal
Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai talks about her passion for planting trees, and the strong links between the environment, democracy and peace
 The first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Wangari Muta Maathai has spearheaded a movement that has resulted in the planting of 31 million trees. She has helped set up 600 community networks across Kenya which today have branches in 20 countries. She believes growing trees alone can help reverse the climate changes taking place on our planet. Maathai was recently in the capital to accept the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding
You have constantly emphasised the relationship between trees and peace. How are the two linked?
There is an intrinsic relationship between trees and peace, because without trees we cannot have water on the planet. We have rivers running through the planet only because of trees. Humans need forests, though forests can do without humans. That is why I have all along maintained that we need to redefine our concept of peace and security. We cannot have peace if we do not share resources equitably. Only a suitable management of resources will bring about lasting peace. We therefore need a governance system that is both responsible and inclusive. How can you have peace if large numbers of people are living in abject poverty?
Conflict has many origins. Surely it cannot be limited to just one factor.
If we look beyond issues of politics, religion and ethnicity, we will find that most of our conflicts are linked to water, grazing, search for minerals and other raw materials. People who are excluded from access to natural resources will instigate wars (in order to gain access) though of course the wealthy also instigate wars to gain access to these dwindling resources. There are strong links between the environment, democracy and peace.
You started the Green Belt movement to bring about a change in this situation…
The Green Belt movement was inspired by the UN Women’s Conference in 1975. I went to Mexico to raise the issue of salary discrimination faced by women teachers in Kenya. But when I was there I heard many other voices. Women across the world complained about lack of access to clean water and firewood. I began to think about these issues and I realised that most of the indigenous forests that existed in Kenya were being cleared in order to grow cash crops. A huge amount of soil erosion was taking place and the clear streams that I had grown up witnessing were drying up. It was like an awakening.
Once I recognised that the environment around me was changing, I said, let us plant trees. A lot of people asked me how I could do this – “You are not a forester they said; you have not been taught to plant trees”. I found their arguments very strange. I told them that we were foresters without diplomas, and we could go ahead and plant trees. Once we began to try and rebuild the environment that had been destroyed, the next question to ask was, who was responsible for creating a situation in which we were losing our forests and our natural resources. I then realised that the government was playing a key role in mismanaging the situation and in destroying our environment.
Isn’t that true of governments across the world?
It is a statement of fact that air, land and forests are all part of our common resources -- they do not belong to any government. The government is only the custodian of our resources, and any government that does not do that should be voted out of power. Governments have to be made accountable for their actions otherwise there will be no resources left for future generations. It is for this reason that, in 2002, we managed to get rid of the government that was in power in Kenya.
What is the present situation in your country?
Most of our rivers have become silted. The question to ask is why we allowed ourselves to get into such a situation. This happened because we planted the wrong trees in the catchment area. Once that happens, the dams set up on the rivers are no longer able to provide electricity. Rivers dry up, rainfall patterns change, crops fail, and people face starvation. We have also been encouraged to change our eating patterns and people have moved away from their traditional food patterns.
I maintain that the answer to all these problems is to grow trees. Each of us needs 10 trees to take care of the carbon dioxide that we breathe out. So, each of us must make a commitment to plant 10 trees in our lifetimes. People have pledged to plant 600 million trees; but I am telling them, don’t only make a pledge, make sure that the trees survive.
Forests everywhere are under threat…
The three important forests in the world are the Amazon, the Congo and the forests of Borneo. All three are threatened by those who see forests as resources to be exploited. During a recent NASA expedition, one of the astronauts mentioned that he saw a thick blanket of dust over Africa. This is because of the huge amounts of de-forestation taking place. If we are not careful, the African continent will be completely swallowed by desert. The Congo forest in the heart of Africa is responsible for preventing both the Sahara desert and the Kalahari desert from swallowing the whole continent. If we continue to cut trees at this pace, we will create micro-deserts.
Are humans on the verge of self-destruction?
We will have to pay a price for what we do. But I must add that the generations responsible for destroying the environment are not the ones that will pay the price.
We began our movement with seven trees and today it has grown to more than 40 million. It is necessary to create an institutional architecture for global environment governance.
InfoChange News & Features, April 2007
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