Interview on NOW! with David Brancaccio
NOW! with David Brancaccio
February 18, 2005
Wangari Maathai signing books after speaking in the Great Hall of Cooper Union in New York City, March 8, 2005. Photo by Juliana Thomas.
David Brancaccio: Next a conversation with a woman who’s been fighting battles for democracy in very different terrain, East Africa. Wangari Maathai was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for the cool way that she pushes for human rights, specifically the rights of women. The Wangari way connects equal rights and democracy with the environment and sustainable development. As founder of what’s called The Green Belt Movement, over the past three decades she has inspired and organized poor women to plant some 30 million trees in both her native Kenya and across the globe. Wangari Maathai, thanks for joining us.
Wangari Maathai: Thank you for having me.
David Brancaccio: What do trees have to do with peace?
Wangari Maathai: When you look at many of the wars that we are fighting throughout the world, whether it is at the national level, whether it is at the global level, they are over natural resources. They are over the limited resources that we have on this planet, and so it is very important that we learn that it is very important for us to manage these resources responsibly. We have to share them more equitably. And we can only do so in an environment that is peaceful and democratic.
David Brancaccio: Professor Maathai, let me ask you something practical. How do you make this work? How do you approach a poor community and get them involved in a solution?
Wangari Maathai: The initial work of the Green Belt Movement was to respond to very basic requests by rural women in Kenya and the rural women would say, our issues are energy, which is mostly firewood, clean drinking water, because rivers are drying up, food, nutritious food for our children, livestock fodder. And when you look at those issues they all come from the land. They are not able to meet these needs because their environment is degraded.
And we started, I told them, “Let’s plant trees.” Just like that. I think it was just one of those things, maybe because I come from the land, I grew up on a farm, I worked on the soil, and when you think about it, that tree is almost a symbol of so many other things that you need to do in order to rehabilitate your environment. Now initially I would have said tree planting has nothing to do with governance, has nothing to do with democracy.
David Brancaccio: It has to do with firewood; it has to do with keeping the soil from eroding. That’s what you might have said.
Wangari Maathai: Yes. But gradually I recognized that actually a lot of environmental degradation is caused by leaders. It is the leaders who are privatizing; it is not the little people. It is the leaders who are fighting over power and using resources to cause conflict between communities and tribes. And that is when for me it became very very clear that you cannot protect the environment if you don’t have good governance and if you do not have democratic space.
David Brancaccio: Tell me about some of your results with the Green Belt Movement. There are thirty million trees that have been planted. It’s extraordinary.
Wangari Maathai: The whole concept of “Green Belt” was to adorn the earth, to decorate the earth with belts of trees. And what I don’t like to see is exposed soil. Soil likes to be covered. Exposed soil is like exposed body, so whenever you see the soil, cover it with something that grows and is green.
David Brancaccio: But the Green Belt Movement also turned out to be a political movement, a movement for change in Kenya’s political structure. How did that come about? How did it switch from the environment to something on the national stage?
Wangari Maathai: It was a matter of need. We came to a situation where we confronted the people who were partly responsible for the degradation of the environment and the people who were partly responsible were the people who were governing us. It was the government and its agents. They were the ones who were privatizing green open spaces.
David Brancaccio: So you found out about this, what did you do?
Wangari Maathai: Well I said, “That is not possible. People need open space. People need to bring their children into an area where they can play without restriction.” And I was told, “This is development.” And I said, “That is not development, definitely not sustainable development, definitely not responsible development. People need fresh air. They can do without buildings. They can do without concrete. But they cannot do without fresh air.”
David Brancaccio: Now the old government, under Daniel arap Moi, they didn’t much like this challenge that you were posing.
Wangari Maathai: Well, no government really likes to be challenged. And I understood that very well. I knew that we were, as we would say in Kenya, removing meat from the lion’s mouth. And that is not something a lion would want.
David Brancaccio: Yeah, the lion gets mad at this.
Wangari Maathai: The lion gets mad and the lion can hurt and the lion can do terrible things.
David Brancaccio: Well did you get hurt?
Wangari Maathai: Well I got hurt several times, and I ended up I jail, got hurt physically.
David Brancaccio: You got beaten up?
Wangari Maathai: Yeah but I understood very well why they were doing that. But we were lucky because eventually we were able to bring in many many more people and for more people to understand that we needed to have change. So we did not regret the suffering that we went through. We knew that we were fighting for a good cause. And when we are sometimes fighting against a high tide you know you’ll get hurt, you know you will suffer, but you know that, if you are lucky, you will see the end result. If you are not lucky you will not see but you hope that the fight will continue until the end. Fortunately I lived long enough to see the changes.
David Brancaccio: As you speak, following your award, there are people all over the world trying to borrow your message. One thing they can’t do, though, is clone Wangari Maathai. Can the Green Belt Movement succeed in places that don’t have a charismatic leader like you?
Wangari Maathai: I’m quite sure that anybody can take that approach and replicate it. The good thing about it is that once you have the method, now you apply it, you adapt it to your own situation; so I don’t want people to think that they have to replicate the Green Belt Movement. What they need to replicate, or what they can borrow from it, is the approach of being able to mobilize, energize, motivate, inspire ordinary people to do things to improve their quality of life.
David Brancaccio: Wangari Maathai, winner of the latest Nobel Peace Prize and author of The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. Thank you very much.
Wangari Maathai: Thank you.
David Brancaccio: Wangari Maathai has just returned from Davos, Switzerland where she took the fight for sustainable development and democracy to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Summit on Improving the State of the World.
Wangari Maathai: Thank you for having me.
David Brancaccio: What do trees have to do with peace?
Wangari Maathai: When you look at many of the wars that we are fighting throughout the world, whether it is at the national level, whether it is at the global level, they are over natural resources. They are over the limited resources that we have on this planet, and so it is very important that we learn that it is very important for us to manage these resources responsibly. We have to share them more equitably. And we can only do so in an environment that is peaceful and democratic.
David Brancaccio: Professor Maathai, let me ask you something practical. How do you make this work? How do you approach a poor community and get them involved in a solution?
Wangari Maathai: The initial work of the Green Belt Movement was to respond to very basic requests by rural women in Kenya and the rural women would say, our issues are energy, which is mostly firewood, clean drinking water, because rivers are drying up, food, nutritious food for our children, livestock fodder. And when you look at those issues they all come from the land. They are not able to meet these needs because their environment is degraded.
And we started, I told them, “Let’s plant trees.” Just like that. I think it was just one of those things, maybe because I come from the land, I grew up on a farm, I worked on the soil, and when you think about it, that tree is almost a symbol of so many other things that you need to do in order to rehabilitate your environment. Now initially I would have said tree planting has nothing to do with governance, has nothing to do with democracy.
David Brancaccio: It has to do with firewood; it has to do with keeping the soil from eroding. That’s what you might have said.
Wangari Maathai: Yes. But gradually I recognized that actually a lot of environmental degradation is caused by leaders. It is the leaders who are privatizing; it is not the little people. It is the leaders who are fighting over power and using resources to cause conflict between communities and tribes. And that is when for me it became very very clear that you cannot protect the environment if you don’t have good governance and if you do not have democratic space.
David Brancaccio: Tell me about some of your results with the Green Belt Movement. There are thirty million trees that have been planted. It’s extraordinary.
Wangari Maathai: The whole concept of “Green Belt” was to adorn the earth, to decorate the earth with belts of trees. And what I don’t like to see is exposed soil. Soil likes to be covered. Exposed soil is like exposed body, so whenever you see the soil, cover it with something that grows and is green.
David Brancaccio: But the Green Belt Movement also turned out to be a political movement, a movement for change in Kenya’s political structure. How did that come about? How did it switch from the environment to something on the national stage?
Wangari Maathai: It was a matter of need. We came to a situation where we confronted the people who were partly responsible for the degradation of the environment and the people who were partly responsible were the people who were governing us. It was the government and its agents. They were the ones who were privatizing green open spaces.
David Brancaccio: So you found out about this, what did you do?
Wangari Maathai: Well I said, “That is not possible. People need open space. People need to bring their children into an area where they can play without restriction.” And I was told, “This is development.” And I said, “That is not development, definitely not sustainable development, definitely not responsible development. People need fresh air. They can do without buildings. They can do without concrete. But they cannot do without fresh air.”
David Brancaccio: Now the old government, under Daniel arap Moi, they didn’t much like this challenge that you were posing.
Wangari Maathai: Well, no government really likes to be challenged. And I understood that very well. I knew that we were, as we would say in Kenya, removing meat from the lion’s mouth. And that is not something a lion would want.
David Brancaccio: Yeah, the lion gets mad at this.
Wangari Maathai: The lion gets mad and the lion can hurt and the lion can do terrible things.
David Brancaccio: Well did you get hurt?
Wangari Maathai: Well I got hurt several times, and I ended up I jail, got hurt physically.
David Brancaccio: You got beaten up?
Wangari Maathai: Yeah but I understood very well why they were doing that. But we were lucky because eventually we were able to bring in many many more people and for more people to understand that we needed to have change. So we did not regret the suffering that we went through. We knew that we were fighting for a good cause. And when we are sometimes fighting against a high tide you know you’ll get hurt, you know you will suffer, but you know that, if you are lucky, you will see the end result. If you are not lucky you will not see but you hope that the fight will continue until the end. Fortunately I lived long enough to see the changes.
David Brancaccio: As you speak, following your award, there are people all over the world trying to borrow your message. One thing they can’t do, though, is clone Wangari Maathai. Can the Green Belt Movement succeed in places that don’t have a charismatic leader like you?
Wangari Maathai: I’m quite sure that anybody can take that approach and replicate it. The good thing about it is that once you have the method, now you apply it, you adapt it to your own situation; so I don’t want people to think that they have to replicate the Green Belt Movement. What they need to replicate, or what they can borrow from it, is the approach of being able to mobilize, energize, motivate, inspire ordinary people to do things to improve their quality of life.
David Brancaccio: Wangari Maathai, winner of the latest Nobel Peace Prize and author of The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. Thank you very much.
Wangari Maathai: Thank you.
David Brancaccio: Wangari Maathai has just returned from Davos, Switzerland where she took the fight for sustainable development and democracy to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Summit on Improving the State of the World.