Light the Way

LIghT ThE WAy

the country’s vegetation was fast disappearing. Indeed, by the 1970s, the majority of Kenya’s forests had been cut down but not replaced. The poor needed wood for cooking, while the wealthy cleared land for agriculture and commercial development.

Her deep concern about Kenya’s alarming rate of deforestation led Maathai to quit her job in the university and devote all her energies to saving the environment. In 1977, she set up the Green Belt Movement (GBM).

Since its foundation, the GBM has been responsible for planting over thirty million trees in Kenya. Its members are mostly rural-based African women. The 6,000 nurseries they now run across Kenya serve two functions:

n They reforest the countryside. n They give work to over 100,000 people.

Until recently, the Kenyan government refused to support the GBM. They thought it challenged the old social order. For the first time, the GBM gave many women independence from men.

It was only a matter of time before Maathai’s work led her into direct confrontation with Kenya’s president, Daniel Arap Moi. He had ruled Kenya with an iron fist since 1978 and intimidated his political opponents.

One particular business venture was very dear to President Moi’s heart. It was a plan to build a huge skyscraper at Uhuru Park, one of the few remaining open spaces left in the capitol city of Nairobi. The whole project would cost about $200 million and feature a huge statue of the president himself at the site.

Maathai pointed out the need to preserve such green spaces. She led the opposition campaign against building in Uhuru Park. Few people thought that she had any chance of stopping the plans of the country’s most powerful man. However, thanks to her successful appeals to public opinion in the local media, and her gaining the support of the United Nations and major donor agencies, she forced President Moi to abandon the scheme.

President Moi and his supporters were furious at their very public defeat. They had completely underestimated Maathai until now. They would not make the same mistake again.

Throughout the 1990s, Maathai was punished for her outspokenness. President Moi and his supporters tried everything they could to intimidate her and force her out of public life. She was repeatedly arrested and then released. Her home was broken into and she was followed and harassed by the police. However, she refused to give up.

Maathai launched a campaign to save the Karura forest. After she had prevented its destruction, she was attacked by hired thugs and hospitalised because of her injuries. Some believe that only her high profile in the Western news media stopped Maathai’s opponents from murdering her.

In 2002, Maathai was elected to Kenya’s national assembly (i.e. parliament). That same year, President Moi was forced to retire under the country’s constitution. His successor, Mwai Kibaki, appointed Maathai as the Assistant Minister of the Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife. This allowed her to support and expand the work of the GBM.

In recognition of her great work, Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She was the first environmentalist to win this important award.

Wangari Maathai was a great example of what it means to be a steward of the environment. She showed how it is possible to build a successful, collective and long-term approach to the environment in a community.

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