Dr. Wangari Maathai: Seeing the Forest and the Trees
Treehugger Radio has a great new podcast of an interview with Dr. Wangari Maathai (right), who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her leadership of an unprecedented international tree-planting effort that has changed many lives and strengthened communities in the course of its work.
After explaining some essential services that trees provide (controlling rainfall, protecting soil, and, of course, cleaning air), Dr. Maathai introduces a few of the many things that the organization she founded, the Green Belt Movement, accomplishes. While it is best known for planting trees, it also empowers women to earn a living and create a more secure future, educates about the environment, and provides experience with a successful model of governance.
As Dr. Maathai explains, while trees themselves are vital, they are really just the beginning of her organization’s work:
“Though most people know of the Green Belt Movement as a tree-planting organization, the tree is its signature and the tree is its symbol, but it is really an entry point into communities. And once we are in communities, we deal with all aspects, or at least many aspects of the community’s life.”
This approach is what makes the Green Belt Movement a strategic initiative. There are many possible ways in which one could envision a program that plants large numbers of trees, if that were its only goal. Wangari Maathai, however, had a broader vision and recognized many mutually reinforcing measures, such as the empowerment of women and the promotion of open and democratic institutions, that the Green Belt Movement could achieve with the right design. Rather than distracting from the tree-planting part of its mission, these measures cultivate generations of environmental guardians and provide a foundation upon which government protection of the environment can grow stronger. Whether we seek to strengthen community and nature through innovation in the non-profit or the for-profit sector, we should take a moment to appreciate the genius of this design.
To Dr. Maathai, the protection of nature and careful use of its bounty is also a key to creating a peaceful world. When people do not exercise responsibility in safeguarding nature, this often results in conflict over territory and resources that can be extracted from the earth. For example, when people deforest mountains, less water is available, which can lead to fighting over water. When overgrazing or other practices degrade the soil, people may seek out better agricultural lands elsewhere and battle for control of them. She sees such competition over scarce resources at the root of conflicts in Darfur, Somalia, and her own country, Kenya. Fostering practices that enable people to secure a livelihood through protecting nature, rather than grasping at scarce offerings of a degraded environment, is surely a promising solution.
I encourage you to listen to the interview.
Evan
I first read about tree-planting by the women in Africa in Robert Rodale’s Book “Save Three Lives” back in 1991. I remember a comment from an official of CARE who had been instrumental in the development of tree planting programs back as early as 1978. He commented that they went to the villages and held meetings. All the men were there. They all agreed that yes, the trees were important, and yes, they needed to be planted. But no trees were ever planted. Then, finally someone woke up and realized that if they really wanted to get trees planted, they needed to talk to the people who actually did all the work - the women.
Rodale writes in his book that he was told that 90% of the work done on farms was done by women. He didn’t believe the figure for a long time until he went there and discovered that yes, women do 90% of the work. He discussed how the planting of trees would help ease the lack of fuel for fires - which in turn eased the pressures off of almost every single aspect of a woman’s life.
I am glad to see that work added to and expanded by Dr. Maathai, and that it has grown to be such an empowering and revitalizing energy for women all over the sub-continent.
We can learn a lot from listening to the people who actually do the work - and who live in the countries we are purporting to help. They know what is best for them, and we should just be willing to provide the assistance they really need instead of trying to force everyone to do things “our” way. That also leads to conflict (and famine).