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Peace Review A Journal of Social Justice

ISSN: 1040-2659 (Print) 1469-9982 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cper20

Peace Profile: Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement

Keturah Scott

To cite this article: Keturah Scott (2013) Peace Profile: Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement, Peace Review, 25:2, 299-306, DOI: 10.1080/10402659.2013.785773

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2013.785773

Published online: 29 May 2013.

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Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 25:299–306 Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN 1040-2659 print; 1469-9982 online DOI: 10.1080/10402659.2013.785773

Peace Profile: Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement KETURAH SCOTT

There are a few human rights activists whose actions had the power to positively affect their families, friends, and neighbors. A very small num- ber of these advocates have further influenced their larger communities; only a miniscule number of these individuals have the courage and persis- tence to extend their influence beyond their immediate communities to alter the course of entire countries and continents. Wangari Maathai is one of these rare activists whose courage and actions have transformed the globe. She is the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace prize, which was awarded to her in 2004 “for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” Additionally, she was the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace prize, thrusting environmental issues into the global limelight.

M aathai changed the world through the simple act of planting trees.She says, “When we plant trees, we plant seeds of peace and seeds of hope.” To some, this sounds like a bromidic platitude. Yet, Maathai has provided sustainable jobs and income to hundreds of thousands of rural women through the simple act of planting trees. Furthermore, tree planting requires individuals to take ownership and responsibility. One must take the first step, commit to the growth of the tree and be responsible for its outcome. To understand how this simple act has transformed the lives of thousands in Kenya and around the globe, we must start at the beginning.

Wangari Maathai was born to peasant farmers on April 1, 1940 in Nyeri, Kenya. She belongs to the Kikuyu community, one of forty-two ethnic groups in Kenya. She lived in a lush, fertile land, blessed by abundant rain, where “hunger was virtually unknown.” Maathai describes her early childhood in her memoir, Unbowed: “My parents raised me in an environment that did not give reasons for fear or uncertainty. Instead, there were many reasons to dream, to be creative, and to use my imagination.” Maathai’s first memories are of life on the farm helping her mother, working in the fields, planting, tilling, plucking, and harvesting.

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To Maathai, the conditions needed to nurture the dormant seed that lay deep within her were two-fold: caring for her garden and attending school. When Maathai was seven years old, her mother gave her a small garden of her own, which Maathai tended to with the utmost care. Maathai’s diligence to her small garden evolved into a profound love for and awareness of the land. As a young child she was attentive to nature, to her seedlings, and to the power of the earth to produce food for its inhabitants.

In the late 1940s, few girls in Africa were privileged with the opportunity to attend school. Maathai’s family valued education, and made the necessary sacrifices to give her the opportunity to learn. This instilled within Maathai a deep respect for education. She did well in school, and continued her secondary education at a Catholic high school. Maathai says: “Education, of course, created many opportunities. In Kenya, for most people of my generation and after, a high school education of a college degree is a guaranteed ticket out of the perceived drudgery of subsistence farming or the cultivation of cash crops for little return. I, too, got this ticket out, but I never severed my connection to the soil.”

M aathai’s ticket came in the form of the Kennedy Airlift. Recently de-colonized, independent Kenya needed educated citizens to fill the roles once occupied by the British. In 1960, three hundred Kenyan students, in- cluding Maathai, traveled to America to obtain their college degrees. Maathai earned a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St. Scholastic College in Atchison, Kansas (1964). She subsequently earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966). Speaking about her educational ex- perience in America, Maathai says: “The experiences I had both on and off the campus, nurtured in me a willingness to listen and learn, to think critically and analytically, and to ask questions. These skills stayed with me wherever I went from then on.” Additionally, the United States prepared Maathai to be confi- dent, tenacious, innovative, and strong. America transformed her—teaching her “not to waste any opportunity, and to do what can be done—and that there is a lot to do. The spirit of freedom and possibility that America nurtured in [her] made [her] want to foster the same in Kenya.”

Upon her return to Kenya, Maathai faced her first battle against sexism in her search for a job. Despite ongoing discrimination, she took a job at the Department of Veterinary Anatomy, and made the most of the opportunity. Eventually she advanced her position, becoming the first women to be chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and the first woman to become associate professor. She pursued doctoral studies in Germany, living in Munich for twenty months. Upon her second return to Kenya in 1969, Maathai was married. She continued teaching and studying at the University of Nairobi, and in 1971 became the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree.

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In addition to being a mother, wife, and teacher, Maathai was also involved with numerous civic organizations. Decolonization left a vacuum in leadership roles within many organizations, and it was not long before Maathai joined the board of the Environment Liaison Center, and became of member of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). These two organizations had great influence on the direction Maathai’s life would soon take.

Maathai warmly reflects on the fertile area in which she spent her early childhood. Thirty years later, while doing research for her PhD, she was roaming the countryside, and noticed the people were malnourished, thin and sickly looking. The once fertile fields and forests of her childhood had dis- appeared. Even the cows were emaciated, “so skinny that [she] could count their ribs.” While serving in the Environment Liaison Center, Maathai was exposed to conversations regarding the environmental degradation occurring in her own backyard. In the NCWK, Maathai listened to the voices and sto- ries of hundreds of rural and urban women who suffered malnourishment and poverty. The decline in available firewood meant mothers could not cook their traditional foods. Instead they began cooking enriched white rice and other imported products that, although high in carbohydrates, lacked vita- mins and minerals. Children were inflicted with diseases and malnourished. Maathai heard women complain about the miles they had to walk in search of firewood and clean water. What the women needed was resources: fire- wood, food, water, and building materials. While listening to these stories and conversations, Maathai realized the inextricable linkages between the health of the land and the health of the people. She says, “Not only was the livestock industry threatened by a deteriorating environment, but I, my children, students, my fellow citizens, and my entire country would pay the price. The connection between the symptoms of environmental degradation and their causes—deforestations, devegetation, unsustainable agriculture, and soil loss-were self-evident.” Maathai soon introduced the concept of planting trees as a means of solving the greater environmental problems in Kenya as well as the daily problems of the rural women. “Why not plant trees?” she asked the women. Trees would provide firewood for fuel, and prevent soil erosion.

I n 1977, the Green Belt Movement (GBM) was launched. There were manyinitial trials in the movement to establish nurseries and garner commu- nity involvement. Some of these trials succeeded, some failed, and many had to be re-adapted. Maathai often told her coworkers in the GBM, “we are on a track that has not been explored before. We are on a trial-and- error basis. If what we did yesterday did not produce good results, let’s not repeat it today because it is a waste of time.” This attitude helped de- velop a culture of innovation, flexibility, adaptability, and persistence within

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the Green Belt Movement. These are essential characteristics not only of grassroots campaigns, but also nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and development groups. Certainly, these attributes paved the way for GBM’s success.

The first Green Belt planting occurred on June 5, 1977, which is World Environment Day. The theme for this planting honored seven people from different ethnic tribes who were community leaders. The second Green Belt planting occurred two years later on a farm owned by over eight hundred women. Other initiatives were tried after those first few, yet none of the projects lasted. One of the first lessons learned by the GBM was that the locals must play an integral role in planting the trees. They must be invested in the process, and willing to see the survival of the trees for the benefit of the entire community.

Another learned lesson concerned the culture in specific areas. In one area, the GBM gave two donkeys to the community to transport water for the trees. Yet the local culture dictated that women carry the water, and donkeys were to be used to transport household goods. Speaking about the lessons learned, Maathai says, “This showed me that we needed to make local people feel invested in the projects so they would mobilize themselves and their neighbors to take responsibility for sustaining them. It also demonstrated to me that aspects of people’s lives such as culture are very important: You may think you are doing the right thing, but in the local context, you are completely off track.”

The news of tree planting initiatives spread and soon many groups were eager to begin their own initiatives. As the GBM grew, so too did the need for seedlings. Initially, the GBM gave seeds away, but they soon realized that this made the women dependent. They then encouraged women to find seeds of indigenous trees in the forest. For every seedling that survived, the GBM compensated the women with the equivalent of four cents (USD). Maathai brought in foresters to teach a group of women how to plant trees. The foresters were initially doubtful about the prospects of teaching rural women how to plant. They told Maathai that a diploma was needed to plant trees, a notion Maathai quickly dismissed. Maathai firmly believes that diplomas may be useful in understanding the nature of the soil or the tree’s growth, but in order to plant a tree, all one needs to know is how to dig a hole, and nurture the tree. These rural women were used to planting crops. The knowledge they already attained from their daily lives was enough. The women listened to Maathai, and soon their seedlings germinated, producing trees equivalent to the ones planted by the foresters. The GBM deemed these women “foresters without diplomas” and were proud of their efforts. The women, too, were proud and began showing one another their successes. Soon nurseries began sprouting across different areas.

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A s a grassroots organization, the strength of the GBM is a direct resultof the unity and strength of each women’s group. Based on research from IBID, the groups are encouraged to be innovative and resourceful, make use of the tools and technology available to them, and not to wait for official assessments to take place. As the GBM evolved, more formal steps were put into place. A system of ten steps was to be implemented by each women’s group, including: forming a group, locating a site for the tree nursery, and reporting on the progress of the nursery. The women’s groups were told to focus just on one step; when that step was completed, alert the GBM organizers, and then move on to the next step. Although this may seem over- simplified, it is a key strategy for grassroots organizations. The power and strength of the organization stems from the individual members, who must not be over-burdened with the vision of the movement, but need to focus solely on their role and accomplishing the next step. Soon hundreds of women’s groups oversaw successful nurseries and were planting thousands of trees.

The next step in the expansion of the movement was women’s groups planting trees in other communities, fulfilling the vision of tree planting as a means to bring peace to Kenya. As various groups replicated these steps, a green belt was formed across the country. The GBM, under the auspices of the NCWK, began to garner not only national attention, but international publicity as well. International publicity, accompanied by international funds and support, allowed for the expansion and success of the GBM.

According to the GBM’s website, the GBM’s “vision has been to create a society of principled, grassroots people who work consciously for the contin- ued improvement of their livelihoods. The mission of GBM Kenya continues to be to mobilize communities for self-determination, justice, equity, poverty reduction and environmental conservation, using trees as the entry point.” Although the core activity of the GBM is tree planting, the GBM focuses on women’s, civil, social, political, and economic rights. The GBM conducts seminars through its Civic and Environmental Education (CEE) program that raise awareness about the linkages between poverty and environmental degradation. Other issues that are addressed in these seminars include justice, equality, democracy, human rights, and resource management. The CEE sem- inars are part of the GBM’s ten-step program, and are free for all the nursery groups. They have been expanded to include lessons in the agrarian history of Kenya, specifically noting the effects of colonization, and the importance of cultivating native plants and trees.

“Gradually, the Green Belt Movement grew from a tree-planting program into one that planted ideas as well. We held seminars with the communities in which Green Belt worked, in which I encouraged women and men to identify their problems,” as recognized by Maathai. The focus of the seminar is to empower ordinary people through civic education and mobilize them into

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action. The goals of the seminars are two-fold: One, it seeks to identify the root causes of poverty and environmental degradation and two, it seeks to empower the community to take ownership of the problems and solve them. This is achieved through a series of workshops in which the participants are asked to list the problems in their community. Having a safe space to voice one’s concerns and list problems is a fundamental component of the seminar. Participants are encouraged to discuss where those problems originated.

Initially, many deny their personal contribution to the problems, and blame the government, other tribes, or anyone that has power. Maathai dispels this denial with the “wrong bus syndrome.” Using the metaphor of traveling, Maathai speaks about taking the wrong bus to get to a certain destination. She asks the participants: If you take the wrong bus, you end up at the wrong destination. Whose fault is it that you got on the wrong bus? Why did you get on the wrong bus? Maybe you cannot read and you were too arrogant to ask for the right bus at the station? Were you not paying attention? The same reasons that led you to take the wrong bus are the root cause of the problems you just listed, as disclosed in the film Taking Root. Maathai tells the participants of the seminars in Speak Truth to Power, “You need to take action. You have to inform yourself. And you are willing to inquire; you are willing to learn. That is why you came to the seminar. You want to plant, you want to empower yourself.”

A s previously discussed, the GBM, led by Wangari Maathai, is a grass-roots, solution-based organization. As such, the organization is flexible, adaptable, and always searching for the root cause of problems. Importance is placed upon thinking of innovative ways to address those root issues. In 1978, when the GBM was just beginning, Kenya had two percent forest cover. Over a hundred years ago, that number was over thirty percent. The ninety-eight percent deforestation was a direct result of colonization and decolonization. Clearing the land for cash crops such as coffee and tea began with British colo- nialists. These practices continued post-independence as Kenya struggled to remain competitive in the international economy. International Monetary Fund policies encouraged the narrowly focused export commodities. Deforestation also removes tree roots that are necessary for holding topsoil in place.

The result is erosion and the reduction in soil fertility, which in turn muddies the streams, killing wildlife, and turns the once lush and fertile coun- tryside into a desert. Over-exploitation of the land creates extreme poverty of the land and the people. More often than not, women are more affected then men. They are the ones that are largely responsible for the home and its environs, and are the ones that are critically affected by the deterioration of the land. As previously discussed, this is exemplified by the lack of access to firewood, fresh water, and non-arable land that cannot sustain subsistence

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crops. The GBM focuses its projects on women empowerment and coordi- nation. Change will only occur when the needs of women are addressed and they are given sustainable solutions that they must act on. One example of the GBM’s solution-based program for women is their village food-security campaign, the capacity for families to feed themselves. This campaign taught local village women how to plant indigenous foods such as fruit trees, yams, cassava and arrowroot using organic methods in kitchen gardens in an effort to address the cultivation of land for indigenous nutrient rich food. According to Green Belt Movements website, “At the household level, hunger has been reduced and nutrition improved.”

The Green Belt Movement Kenya has worked tirelessly to advance so- cial, cultural, economic, civil, and political rights of the citizens of Kenya. Success has occurred in every one of these areas. According to Maathai, a primary reason for the movement’s success is that it circumvented government control and is kept firmly under local control. Being independently funded, although challenging, gave the GBM freedom to expand from just an envi- ronmental organization into a civic and political organization. Furthermore, studies show that privately run institutions in Africa achieve greater successes. Most government funded organizations run the risk of mismanagement and corruption, according to Awori Hayanga.

The GBM and Wangari Maathai have received international recognition for their approach to poverty reduction and promotion of peace in Kenya by erasing the distinctions between environmentalism, feminism, democratiza- tion, and human rights advocacy. These issues are inextricably connected. One cannot be solved without addressing the others. Rural families struggle to survive due to the degradation of the land—whose exploitation was en- couraged by bad government policies. According to Maathai, environmental degradation and poverty are locked in a vicious cycle that can only be broken when the environment is attended to. In an effort to exhort the women to take care of the environment, Maathai states in From Tiny Seeds, “If we say we are too poor to take care of the environment, then it will only get worse. We have to turn it around and push the poverty back. Planting trees breaks the cycle: when we can give ourselves food, firewood, and help to nurture the soil for planting and clean water, then we begin to roll poverty back.” This approach flies in the face of traditional Western development theory. The West typically portrays environmental issues as middle-class issues, to be addressed from the government in a top-down approach. An inherent flaw in this portrayal is that is subverts individual responsibility. Maathai’s approach, on the other hand, clearly states each individual’s responsibility to care for and protect these resources.

The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Speech states, “Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment. Maathai stands at the front of the

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fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic, and cultural develop- ment in Kenya and in Africa. She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally.” By seeking simple solutions for the problems she saw in front of her, Maathai created a working model that resulted in sustainable solutions and innovative change. Her courage in the face of adversity and conviction that the status quo was not acceptable enabled her to effect real change. Through her life’s work, Wangari Maathai has proven one person truly can change the world.