Wangari Maathai: Visionary, Environmental Leader, Political Activist (Lantern Books on Africa)

Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya in 1940. In 1960, she won a Kennedy scholarship to study in America and earned a master's degree in biology from the University of Pittsburgh and became the first woman in East Africa to earn a Ph.D. Returning to Kenya in 1966, Wangari Maathai was shocked at the degradation of the forests and the farmland caused by deforestation. Heavy rains had washed away much of the topsoil, silt was clogging the rivers, and fertilizers were depriving the soil of nutrients. Wangari decided to solve the problem by planting trees. Under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya, of which she was chairwoman from 1981 to 1987, she introduced the idea of planting trees through citizen foresters in 1976, and called this new organization the Green Belt Movement (GBM). She continued to develop GBM into broad-based, grassroots organization whose focus was women's groups planting of trees in order to conserve the environment and improve their quality of life. Through the Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai has assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on their farms and on schools and church compounds in Kenya and all over East Africa. In Africa, as in many parts of the world, women are responsible for meals and collecting firewood. Increasing deforestation has not only meant increasing desertification, but it has also meant that women have had to travel further and further afield in order to collect the firewood. This in turn has led to women spending less time around the home, tending to crops, and looking after their children. By staying closer to home, earning income from sustainably harvesting the fruit and timber from trees, women not only can be more productive, they can provide stability in the home. They can also create time for education opportunities—whether for themselves or their children. This virtuous circle of empowerment through conservation is serving as a model throughout the world, where women both individually and collectively are entrusted with money and material to invest it in ways that make a difference to their daily lives. Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement is a great example of how one person can turn around the lives of thousands, if not millions of others, by empowering others to change their situation. Wangari's road to success was by no means easy. During the 1970s and 1980s, she came under increasing scrutiny from the government of Daniel arap Moi. She was frequently the target of vilification from the government, as well as subject to outright attacks and imprisonment. She refused to compromise her belief that the people were best trusted to look after their natural resources, as opposed to the corrupt cronies of the government, who were given whole swathes of public land, which they then despoiled. In December 2002, Wangari Maathai was elected by an overwhelming margin to Parliament, where she is the Assistant Secretary for Environnment, Wildlife, and Natural Resources in the democratically elected Kibaki government. Even though she is now being protected by the very same soldiers who once arrested her, her voice on behalf of the environment is still strong and determined. In October 2004, she capped a lifetime of incredible achievements when she was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. In The Green Belt Movement, founder Wangari Maathai tells its story: why it started, how it operates, and where it is going. She includes the philosophy behind it, its challenges and objectives, and the specific steps involved in starting a similar grassroots environmental and social justice organization. The Green Belt Movement is the inspiring story of people working at the grassroots level to improve their environment and their country. Their story offers ideas about a new and hopeful future for Africa and the rest of the world. Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya in 1940. In 1960, she won a Kennedy scholarship to study in America and earned a master's degree in biology from the University of Pittsburgh and became the first woman in East Africa to earn a Ph.D.Returning to Kenya in 1966, Wangari Maathai was shocked at the degradation of the forests and the farmland caused by deforestation. Heavy rains had washed away much of the topsoil, silt was clogging the rivers, and fertilizers were depriving the soil of nutrients. Wangari decided to solve the problem by planting trees.

Under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya, of which she was chairwoman from 1981 to 1987, she introduced the idea of planting trees through citizen foresters in 1976, and called this new organization the Green Belt Movement (GBM). She continued to develop GBM into broadbased, grassroots organization whose focus was women's groups planting of trees in order to conserve the environment and improve their quality of life. Through the Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai has assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on their farms and on schools and church compounds in Kenya and all over East Africa.

In Africa, as in many parts of the world, women are responsible for meals and collecting firewood. Increasing deforestation has not only meant increasing desertification, but it has also meant that women have had to travel further and further afield in order to collect the firewood. This in turn has led to women spending less time around the home, tending to crops, and looking after their children. By staying closer to home, earning income from sustainably harvesting the fruit and timber from trees, women not only can be more productive, they can provide stability in the home. They can also create time for education opportunitieswhether for themselves or their children.

This virtuous circle of empowerment through conservation is serving as a model throughout the world, where women both individually and collectively are entrusted with money and material to invest it in ways that make a difference to their daily lives. Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement is a great example of how one person can turn around the lives of thousands, if not millions of others, by empowering others to change their situation.

Wangari's road to success was by no means easy. During the 1970s and 1980s, she came under increasing scrutiny from the government of Daniel arap Moi. She was frequently the target of vilification from the government, as well as subject to outright attacks and imprisonment. She refused to compromise her belief that the people were best trusted to look after their natural resources, as opposed to the corrupt cronies of the government, who were given whole swathes of public land, which they then despoiled.

In January 2003, Wangari Maathai was elected by an overwhelming margin to Parliament, where she is the Assistant Secretary for Environment, Wildlife, and Natural Resources in the democratically elected Kibaki government. Even though she is now being protected by the very same soldiers who once arrested her, her voice on behalf of the environment is still strong and determined.

In The Green Belt Movement, founder Wangari Maathai tells its story: why it started, how it operates, and where it is going. She includes the philosophy behind it, its challenges and objectives, and the specific steps involved in starting a similar grassroots environmental and social justice organization. The Green Belt Movement is the inspiring story of people working at the grassroots level to improve their environment and their country. Their story offers ideas about a new and hopeful future for Africa and the rest of the world.

Author Bio:
Wangari Maathai was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work in Africa. She is the founder of the Green Belt Movement and the first woman to earn a doctorate in biology in East Africa. A recipient of numerous awards for her work on environmental and social issues, she was elected to Parliament by an overwhelming majority in 2003 and is currently the Assistant Secretary for Environment, Wildlife, and Natural Resources in the new democratically elected Kenyan government. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya.

"When Kenyan environmental and democracy activist Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, she capped a life full of firsts. She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Eastern and Central Africa, and the first woman to attain associate professorship and to hold a department chair at the University of Nairobi. In 1977, shocked by the environmental devastation cause by deforestation in her beloved Kenya, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement (GBM). For thirty yearsm GBM has enabled many people--particularly women--to plant trees in their regions, providing them with food, fuel, and halting soil erosion and desertification. GBM became much more than that, however. It became a movement for representative democracy that led to Kenya's first fully democratic elections in a generation, during which Maathai was elected to Parliament and made a minister for the environment. The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience is the story of the Green Belt Movement in Wangari Maathai's own words. It reveals the struggles and the structure of this extraordinary effort to reforest a vast region and free a people. Over the course of its history, thirty million trees have been planted, and tens of thousands of people have earned a livelihood. The Green Belt Movement is the inspiring story of people working at the grassroots level to improve their environment and their country. Their story offers ideas about a new and hopeful future for Africa and the rest of the world." -- Publisher's description Africa's future is the subject of fierce debate, with the media full of warnings about environmental and economic collapse. Development workers continue to create supposed solutions to the problems they see, with little effect and much controversy. While these outsiders haggle over projections and prophecies, Africans are working on a variety of small, grassroots projects that may change the course of their future. The Green Belt Movement is an internationally acclaimed tree-planting movement founded by Kenyans and run by and for Kenyans. The Green Belt Movement, which has planted millions of trees throughout East Africa in order to provide sources of fuel and food, and a way to stop soil erosion and environmental degradation, is one example of an indigenous movement working to influence Africa's future. Many of its workers are women. In The Green Belt Movement, founder Wangari Maathai tells its story: why it started, how it operates and where it's going. She includes the philosophy behind it, its challenges and objectives and the specific steps involved in starting a similar grassroots environmental and social justice organization. The Green Belt Movement is the inspiring story of people working at the grassroots level to improve their environment and their country. Their story offers ideas about a new and hopeful future for Africa and the rest of the world. At 27, Bill Hatcher was at a crossroads. Brought up in an evangelical household in the Bible Belt, his religion had provided no answers to his parents'broken marriage, or, indeed, his own divorce. The key to his salvation would come from a most unlikely source: a flyer calling for Peace Corps volunteers. A year later, Hatcher finds himself in Tanzania, East Africa. As a geography teacher at an all-girls'boarding school, he's expected broaden his students'horizons, but instead it is his own worldview that is challenged—by encounters with local shamans; dangerous ascents on Mounts Kenya, Kilimanjaro, and Meru; and especially a friendship with a Muslim student. Through tragedy and triumph, by questioning the very core of his being, he manages to escape the confines of his'marble room'and gain a new understanding of himself and God. Filled with breathtaking accounts of death-defying mountain climbs and the spectacular beauty of the African countryside, this memoir is both a tale of adventure and self-discovery—and proof that even the most naive and insular American can achieve a spiritual awakening. At 27, Bill Hatcher was at a crossroads. Brought up in an evangelical household in the Bible Belt, his religion had provided no answers to his parents' broken marriage, or, indeed, his own divorce. The key to his salvation would come from a most unlikely a flyer calling for Peace Corps volunteers. A year later, Hatcher finds himself in Tanzania, East Africa. As a geography teacher at an all-girls' boarding school, he's expected broaden his students' horizons, but instead it is his own worldview that is challengedby encounters with local shamans; dangerous ascents on Mounts Kenya, Kilimanjaro, and Meru; and especially a friendship with a Muslim student. Through tragedy and triumph, by questioning the very core of his being, he manages to escape the confines of his "marble room" and gain a new understanding of himself and God. Filled with breathtaking accounts of death-defying mountain climbs and the spectacular beauty of the African countryside, this memoir is both a tale of adventure and self-discoveryand proof that even the most naive and insular American can achieve a spiritual awakening. Through the lens of Rowe's relationships with two Kenyan conservationists—Wangari Maathai and Daphne Sheldrick—The Elephants in the Room surveys a number of prejudices that many of us who are fortunate to be born with the privileges attached to our skin color, sex, and access to resources don't like to deal with: race, misogyny, and the legacy of empire. By examining the two women's memoirs (Unbowed and Love, Life, and Elephants), both of which were launched following talks at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, these metaphorical elephants in the room are combined with a study of the exploitation of actual elephants on the continent of Africa, and the iterations of memory that are disclosed or hidden in the writing of memoirs and the collecting of bones for museums. Like elephants themselves, The Elephants in the Room ranges far, analyzing work by Joseph Conrad, Robert Pogue Harrison, Barbara Gowdy, Willard Price, George Orwell, Adam Hochschild, and others. Through the lens of Rowe's relationships with two Kenyan conservationistsWangari Maathai and Daphne Sheldrickthis book surveys a number of prejudices that many of us who are fortunate to be born with the privileges attached to our skin color, sex, and access to resources don't like to deal with: race, misogyny, and the legacy of empire. By examining the two women's memoirs (Unbowed and Love, Life, and Elephants), both of which were launched following talks at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, these metaphorical elephants in the room are combined with a study of the exploitation of actual elephants on the continent of Africa, and the iterations of memory that are disclosed or hidden in the writing of memoirs and the collecting of bones for museums. Like elephants themselves, The Elephants in the Room ranges far, analyzing work by Joseph Conrad, Robert Pogue Harrison, Barbara Gowdy, Willard Price, George Orwell, Adam Hochschild, and others. Nobel Peace Prize laureate, fighter for democratic space, founder of the Green Belt Movement, and inspiration for women and grassroots activists throughout the world, the environmentalist Wangari Maathai (19402011) was a complex and multifaceted figure. In this book, fellow Kenyan Namulundah Florence offers an expansive examination of Maathais role as a public figure, educator inside and beyond the academy, symbol of resistance to oppression, and very visible woman in a patriarchal society. Examining Maathai through the lens of feminist theory, Florence unpacks the social and political background of Maathais life and work and places her within the context of womens struggles in Africa for self-determination and access to education and political power. In so doing, Florence reveals the complexities and many dimensions of this fascinating and extraordinary voice for women in Africa and beyond. Brought up in an evangelical household in the Bible Belt, Hatcher's religion had provided no answers to his parents' broken marriage, or his own divorce. The key to his salvation would come from a most unlikely source: a flyer calling for Peace Corps volunteers. As a geography teacher at an all-girls' boarding school in Tanzania, he's expected broaden his students' horizons, but instead it is his own worldview that is challenged. Through tragedy and triumph, by questioning the very core of his being, he manages to escape the confines of his "marble room" and gain a new understanding of himself and God 2004 Nobel Peace Prize announcement Statement from Wangari Maathai Preface Foreword Introduction The history of the Green Belt Movement The overall goal, values, and projects The organization's structure Funding Achievements Constraints Lessons learned Why bother? How to establish and run a green belt tree-planting campaign : the ten-step procedure The replication of the Green Belt Movement The way forward Afterword : an interview with Wangari Maathai. [This book] is the story of the Green Belt Movement in Wangari Maathai's own words. It reveals the struggles and the structure of this extraordinary effort to reforest a vast region and free a people. [This] is the inspiring story of people working at the grassroots level to improve their environment and their country. Their story offers ideas about a new and hopeful future for Africa and the rest of the world.-Back cover Fissures of men The writing on the wall Threshold An omnivore's dilemma The tree of good and evil Serpentine Circumcision Common ancestors Meeting the goddess Crossing the River Styx Sanctum sanctorum Belly of the beast God willing Rites of passage Catechism The prophet Journey to the center of the earth The marble room Books of revelation Resurrection Amulets and spells Limbo Metamorphosis Ascension.