Breaking
news… by Wangari Maathai’s family and members of the
Green Belt Movement
Professor Maathai’s departure is untimely and a very great
loss to all who knew her — as a mother, relative, co-worker,
colleague, role model, and heroine; or who admired her determination
to make the world a more peaceful, healthier, and better place.
Prof. Wangari Muta Maathai started the Green Belt Movement in
1977, working with women to improve their livelihoods by increasing
their access to resources like firewood for cooking and clean
water. She became a great advocate for better management of natural
resources and for sustainability, equity, and justice.
A synopsis of her life and work can be read below.
Wangari Muta Maathai (1940–2011): Nobel Peace Laureate;
environmentalist; scientist; parliamentarian; founder of the
Green Belt Movement; advocate for social justice, human rights,
and democracy; elder; and peacemaker. She lived and worked in
Nairobi, Kenya.
“ Every
person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many
times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept
going, and that is what I have always tried to do.”
“ You
cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform
them, and you help them understand that these resources
are their own, that they must protect them.”
Wangari
Maathai was born in the village of Ihithe, near Nyeri, in the Central
Highlands of Kenya on April 1, 1940. At a
time when most Kenyan girls were not educated, she went
to school
at the instigation of her elder brother, Nderitu. Principally
taught by Catholic missionary nuns, she graduated from
Loreto Girls’ High School in 1959. The following year she was
part of the “Kennedy airlift,” a scholarship program
of the U.S. government and the Kennedy family that took her to
Mount St. Scholastica (now Benedictine College) in Atchison,
Kansas, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in
biological sciences.
In 1966
she earned a master’s degree at the University
of Pittsburgh. That year she returned to a newly independent
Kenya, and soon after joined the School of Veterinary Medicine
at the University of Nairobi. In 1971 she received a Ph.D.,
the first woman in east and central Africa to do so. She
became the
first woman to chair a department at the University and
the first to be appointed a professor.
In the
1970s Professor Maathai became active in a number of environmental
and humanitarian organizations in Nairobi,
including
the National
Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). Through her work representing
women academics in the NCWK, she spoke to rural women
and learned from them about the deteriorating environmental
and social
conditions affecting poor, rural Kenyans—especially
women. The women told her that they lacked firewood for
cooking and
heating, that
clean water was scarce, and nutritious food was limited.
Professor Maathai suggested to them that planting trees might
be an answer. The trees would provide wood for cooking, fodder
for livestock, and material for fencing; they would protect watersheds
and stabilize the soil, improving agriculture. This was the beginning
of the Green Belt Movement (GBM), which was formally established
in 1977. GBM has since mobilized hundreds of thousands of women
and men to plant more than 47 million trees, restoring degraded
environments and improving the quality of life for people in
poverty.
As GBM’s
work expanded, Professor Maathai realized that behind poverty and
environmental destruction were
deeper issues
of disempowerment, bad governance, and a loss of
the values that had enabled communities to sustain their
land and
livelihoods, and what was best in their cultures.
The planting of trees
became
an entry-point for a larger social, economic, and
environmental agenda.
In the
1980s and 1990s the Green Belt Movement joined with other pro-democracy
advocates to press for an
end to the
abuses of
the dictatorial regime of then Kenyan president
Daniel arap Moi. Professor Maathai initiated campaigns that
halted the
construction
of a skyscraper in Uhuru (“Freedom”)
Park in downtown Nairobi, and stopped the grabbing
of public
land
in Karura
Forest, just north of the city center. She also
helped lead a yearlong
vigil with the mothers of political prisoners that
resulted in freedom for 51 men held by the government.
As a
consequence of these and other advocacy efforts, Professor Maathai
and GBM staff and colleagues were
repeatedly beaten,
jailed, harassed, and publicly vilified by the
Moi regime. Professor Maathai’s fearlessness and
persistence resulted in her becoming one of the
best-known and most
respected
women in Kenya.
Internationally, she also gained recognition for
her courageous stand for the rights of people and
the environment.
Professor
Maathai’s commitment to a democratic Kenya never
faltered. In December 2002, in the first free-and-fair elections
in her country for a generation, she was elected as Member of
Parliament for Tetu, a constituency close to where sh egrew up.
In 2003 President Mwai Kibaki appointed her Deputy Minister for
the Environment in the new government. Professor Maathai brought
GBM’s strategy of grassroots empowerment and commitment
to participatory, transparent governance to the Ministry of Environment
and the management of Tetu’s constituency
development fund (CDF). As an MP, she emphasized:
reforestation,
forest protection,
and the restoration of degraded land; education
initiatives, including scholarships for those
orphaned by HIV/AIDS;
and expanded access to voluntary counseling and
testing (VCT)
as well as improved
nutrition for those living with HIV/AIDS.
In the
violence that followed the contested 2007 Kenyan elections, Professor
Maathai served as
a mediator and
a critical voice
for peace, accountability, and justice. In
addition, she and GBM
were instrumental in ensuring that the new
Kenyan constitution, ratified by a public vote in 2010,
included the right
of all citizens to a clean and healthy environment,
and that
the constitution’s
drafting was truly consultative.
In 2004 Professor Maathai was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in recognition of her work for
sustainable development, democracy, and peace—the first African woman and the first environmentalist
to receive this honor. In announcing the award, the Norwegian
Nobel Committee said that Professor Maathai “stands at
the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social,
economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa.” It
praised the “holistic approach” of her work and called
her “a strong voice speaking for the
best forces in Africa to promote peace and
good living
conditions
on that
continent.”
In 2006
Professor Maathai co-founded the Nobel Women’s
Initiative with five of her fellow female
peace laureates to advocate for justice, equality,
and peace worldwide. In recent years Professor
Maathai played an increasingly important role in global
efforts
to address climate
change, specifically
by advocating for the protection of indigenous
forests and the inclusion of civil society
in policy decisions.
In 2005
ten Central
African governments appointed her the goodwill
ambassador for the Congo Basin rainforest
and that same year
she accepted the position of presiding officer
of the African
Union’s
Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC).
In 2006 Professor Maathai joined with the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) to launch a campaign to plant a billion trees
around the world. Tha tgoal was met in less than a year; the
target now stands at 14 billion. In 2007 Professor Maathai became
co-chair (with former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin) of
the Congo Basin Forest Fund, an initiative of the British and
Norwegian governments, and in 2009 she was designated a United
Nations messenger of peace by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
In 2010,
Professor Maathai became a trustee of the Karura Forest Environmental
Education
Trust.
That
same year,
in partnership
with the University of Nairobi, she established
the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace
and Environmental Studies
(WMI). The WMI
will bring together academic research—e.g. in land use,
forestry, agriculture, resource-based conflicts, and peace studies—with
the Green Belt Movement approach and
members of the organization. Through
sharing their
experiences, academics and those
working at the grassroots will learn
from and educate
each other
on the linkages between livelihoods and
ecosystems.
Professor
Maathai received a number of honors. Those bestowed on her by governments
include:
the Order
of the Rising
Sun (Japan, 2009), the Legion D’Honneur
(France, 2006), and Elder of the Golden
Heart and Elder
of the Burning Spear
(Kenya,
2004,
2003). Professor Maathai also received
awards from many organizations and
institutions throughout the world,
including: the Nelson
Mandela Award for Health and Human
Rights (2007), the Kenya National Commission
on Human Rights
Lifetime
Achievement Award (2006),
the Sophie Prize (2004), the Goldman
Prize (1991), the Right Livelihood
Award
(1984);
and honorary
doctorates from Yale
University and Morehouse College in
the U.S.,
Ochanomizu University in Japan,
and the University of Norway, among
others.
Professor
Maathai documented her life, work, and perspectives in four books:
The Green
Belt Movement:
Sharing the
Approach and the Experience (2003),
which charts the organization’s
development and methods; Unbowed(2006), her autobiography; The
Challenge for Africa (2008), which examines the social, economic,
and political bottlenecks that have held back the continent’s
development, and provides a manifesto
for change; and Replenishing the
Earth: Spiritual
Values
for Healing
Ourselves and the
World (2010), which explores the
values that underpin the Green Belt
Movement and suggests how they can
be applied.
Professor
Maathai is survived by her three children—Waweru,
Wanjira, and Muta, and her granddaughter,
Ruth Wangari.
Roanoke
exists in time… published in the Roanoke Tribune August
11, 2011
The pattern for future development in the Roanoke Valley was determined
in prehistory. At the end of the last glacial period, between 12,500
and 10,000 years ago, animals began making their way along Lick Run
to the salt marshes and licks now buried under parts of downtown and
of the Norfolk-Southern railyard. They established a trail near present
I-581.
Paleo-Indian hunters followed the game. To improve the area surrounding
the salt licks as a hunting ground, prehistoric people periodically
burned the surrounding land to promote the growth of forage. The “Barrens” they
created were the site of intermittent human settlement for 10,000 years
before Mark Evans claimed 1,900 acres for the first homestead in the
Roanoke Valley.
About 1740 Mark Evans began permanent settlement of the Roanoke Valley
by building his home at Evans Spring and establishing a mill at Crystal
Spring. A hundred and forty years later, the Norfolk and Western Railroad
cited the reliable supply of fresh water from Evans Spring and Crystal
Spring as a reason for choosing Big Lick as the site for its railhead.
The City of Roanoke was born.
Miraculously, Evans Spring and some other contiguous parts of the prehistoric "Barrens” survive
today. Absolutely irreplaceable historically and potentially crucial
for successfully mitigating the potential for flooding of downtown
Roanoke, the Barrens wetland and floodplain properties are currently
the subject of municipal planning discussions. Given what’s at
stake historically, environmentally and socially, the people of Roanoke
should insist that the city administration not rush the process.
Beginning where it all began, Roanoke's past, its present and its future
deserve full and careful examination, understanding, consideration
and sober judgment.
by Tom
Cain
Roanoke exists in nature… Letter
to the editor submitted to the Roanoke Times Aug 13, 2011
The announcement for the public planning meetings on
the Evans Spring property describe the land as “vacant.” But,
the historic floodplain and wetlands of Evans Spring and Lick Run are
more properly
understood as working land. They reduce the potential for flooding
of downstream neighborhoods, Orange Avenue/Williamson Road, Roanoke’s
central business district and the Norfolk Southern railyard.
Given that Roanoke has flooded five times in the last seventy-five
years, the fact that city exist within nature and nature exists within
the city should not be dismissed lightly.
In all cases, any potential impact of proposed changes in land use
on Roanoke’s hydrology need to be understood as precisely as
possible and carefully weighed.
As yet, Roanoke has no such conceptual framework to assist sound
public judgment.
The current discussion considering land use changes to the critical
wetlands and floodplain at Evans Spring and along Lick Run should
not be rushed.
They should occasion the beginning of a public urban design process
that looks at and understands the city as a functioning, integrated
whole, not as a disjointed assemblage of parts.
by Tom
Cain
“Blest be the tie that
binds” (Proposal
for uniting Roanoke with a corridor for life-long learning)
Article
submitted for publication in the August 18, 2011 edition of the Roanoke Tribune:
As readers of the Tribune know, Evans Spring is not
just “…a
name scrawled on a map from the 1700s.” The spring on the property
is named for Mark Evans who claimed it about 1740 as part of the first
homestead built in the Roanoke Valley. As a part of “the
Barrens,” land
maintained by Paleo-Indians from perhaps 8,000 B.C., it is a site
of irreplaceable historic and cultural value.
As yet, the Commonwealth has no standard of learning for Southwest
Virginia history. But that doesn’t mean that the history
of this region is trivial. Far from it. Our region played a pivotal
role in
the settlement of this continent by Europeans and African Americans.
The floodplain and wetlands of Evans Spring and the Lick Run Watershed
help to mitigate flooding of downstream neighborhoods, Orange Avenue/Williamson
Road, Roanoke’s central business district and the Norfolk
Southern railyard. The option of augmenting the natural topography
of the Evans
Spring land to increase the capacity of the property to temporarily
impound stormwater during potential disaster events deserves thorough
study and careful evaluation before any planning decision is made.
Roanoke has flooded five times in the last seventy-five years.
Along with low-impact development strategies (rain gardens, vegetated
roofs,
permeable pavement, etc) implemented to restore the hydrology of
the Lick Run Watershed, allowing slow release of water impounded
for 2-3
days at Evans Spring could save money by helping extend the service
life of and improving the functioning of the city’s existing
stormwater infrastructure.
Allowing for periodic temporary flooding, the Evans
Spring property
could be developed as an internationally-themed nature reserve
and botanic garden teaching how to live safely, healthily, prosperously
+ peacefully within nature’s restorative capabilities. There
are places with climates similar to Roanoke’s on the Southeast
corners of every continent except Antarctica. Plant materials from
those places in Africa, India, China, Japan, Europe and Central and
South America could form the basis for teaching about the global environment
and how various cultures respond to it – their cuisines,
medicines, spiritual beliefs, etc. Beyond delighting everyone,
that kind of learning
would help equip students (of any age) for well-paid careers in
international business, sustainability science, public health,
environmental art,
etc.
Averting disasters, nourishing good health (preventative medicine),
cultural understanding, etc. could form the program for a new cultural
institution located in North Roanoke that would tie the entire
community together for the first time. With physical linkage along
the Lick
Run Greenway among William Fleming, Countryside, Evans Spring,
the Higher
Ed Center, the Culinary Institute, downtown, Jefferson College,
Virginia Tech-Carilion Medical School and Research Institute and
programmatic
and conceptual linkage to Virginia Western, the Governor’s
School and Patrick Henry, Roanoke could develop a corridor for
life-long learning
that would make a visible statement about Roanoke’s intention
to honestly and proactively address its past by establishing environmental
and social justice as the reality of its developmental future.
by Tom
Cain
Building
Community by Design (published
in the Roanoke Tribune August 25, 2011)
The psychiatrist and noted author Scott Peck has written that we build
community out of crisis and we build community by accident, but we
do not know how to build community by design.
The problem with building community out of crisis, he contends, is
that once the crisis is over so is the community.
from “Collaborating
to Make Democracy Work” -
Final report of the Ninety-Ninth
American Assembly, Columbia University
Ideas matter.
Historic Evans Spring could be developed in ways bring people of
good will together - in full view of everyone - to establish and
permanently
proclaim social and environmental justice as core values for Roanoke's
future growth. That’s an idea that should not be let go of
lightly.
Given the amount of vacant and underutilized property that already
exists, Roanoke probably does not need more commercial space. So
why should the “idea” to do that win out? Developers
should prove there is an actual need for what they propose.
The ancient, historic floodplain and wetlands of Evans Spring and
those along the Lick Run Watershed are valuable to the entire region – not
just the city. They cry out for development that doesn't do violence
to nature, history or community.
There are ways to develop that North Roanoke property to definitively
and visibly proclaim an end to the less worthy parts of the history
of the past while initiating permanent programs and creative connections
that would secure a united, safe, healthy, prosperous and peaceful
community future.
We are proposing that an internationally-themed nature reserve and
botanic garden could be developed as an immense asset for Roanoke
and the headwaters region - environmentally, culturally, financially
+
socially. If this sounds like something you will want to help bring
about, join in the planning by participating in the next planning
session set for 10:00 a.m. Saturday, September 17 at the Community
Action Center
on 15th Street and Melrose Avenue, N.W.
Perhaps you have a better idea. When city staff ask what you want
to see, give it some thought before you give them an answer. If
that takes
some time, require that you get it. Whatever you do, don’t
drop out of the planning process, abdicating responsibility for
its outcome.
Participate!
by Tom
Cain
| The
Encyclopedia of Earth is a free, peer-reviewed,
searchable collection of content about the Earth, its natural
environments,
and their interaction
with society, written by expert scholars and educators. |
|
Living within Nature: Integrated whole
systems thinking
The typical analytical process involves taking things apart to understand
them. However the essential properties of living systems exist in the whole,
not in the individual pieces. When we study environments and cultures,
we must recognize and respect the connections among parts, in context with
each other, and with the whole.
Resource efficiency
Because
living systems are interdependent, resources applied to solve one problem
may contribute to the solution of others. The value and
effectiveness
of investments of talent, time and treasure can be leveraged when
we think and act at the level of whole systems.
Collaborative proaction for cumulative beneficial change
Big
environmental problems often result from cumulative negative effects
of many small adverse actions taken over time. Each of
us can contribute
individually to their solution. However, it is through informed
and coordinated collective action among the many businesses, governments,
and civil society institutions (including faith communities) that define
our culture that we shall achieve cummulative improvements that signify
at the level of watershed ecosystems.
We
do not have the luxury of endless time to stop making mistakes and
correct the ones we have made. Among our essential tasks is to figure
out how to learn and work collaboratively and how to sustain positive
collective proaction. That is Impact+Amplify's purpose and utility.
Averting disasters or mitigating their potential for harm
Most disasters ("natural," health and social)
can be averted by learning to live safely, healthily, prosperously
and peacefully
within nature's restorative capacity. Humans must choose to adapt
by creating
and sustaining environments and cultures in balance with
nature, however imperfectly we understand it. That is both the challenge
and the opportunity
of our age - and of our locale.
Civil
Society Organization (an “NGO” defined
as what it is, not what it isn’t.)
Without imposed limitations of time, place or subject matter, Impact
+ Amplify uses all the flexibility inherent in being
a civil society organization
to teach and promote integrated whole systems thought
and proaction at both ecosystemic and cultural scale. We seek to enable life-long
learning
and sustained productive collaborations among people of good
will.
Note:
Often it is necessary to catalyze, facilitate and sustain
connections and working relationships among governments, agencies,
businesses, and organizations that, though understanding
the need
of and potential for flexible,
creative collaborations, may be restricted (within "silos")
by jurisdictional boundaries or established
missions.
Please
the American Assembly's document, "Collaborating
to Make Democracy Work" about the creative role civil
society institutions play in facilitating collaboration with government
and businesses and with each other. [ A copy is posted in the Resources
section of this website.]
strategies: time
Since
civil society institutions are not restricted by business or electoral
cycles, we are able to initiate and sustain long-range
vision and creative
proaction through the extended periods of time that may
be needed to achieve beneficial and meaningful environmental and
cultural change.
See
the "Age of the Anthropocene" and "The Ecozoic
Age" in the Resources
section of this website.
strategies: place
Centered
in creation: Humans are centered in creation
by our ability to look both outward and inward at nature.
Looking
outward at nature:
Preserving, restoring and enhancing
the hydrology and biodiversity of watershed ecosystems through
integrated,
proactive,
low-impact development of
forest and farm land and of the
built environment [Please
see the “Mountains
to Sea” section of this
website.]
Looking inward at nature:
Nourishing health; physical, intellectual
and spiritual [Please see the “Nourishing
Health” section
of this website. There your can download and fill
out forms to create a personal
medical history and a medical
family tree.
Facilitating creation of a green and ethical
regional economy that
values and accounts both natural and human capital.
There is no environmental justice that does not include social
justice. Sabbath
Economics [Please
see the “Green
and Ethical Economy” section
of this website]
“Genius Loci” (the
spirit of place) How the environment has shaped and continues to shape history
(plate tectonics, geology,
topography, hydrology, biology and anthropology) [Please
see the “Mountains
to Sea” section
of this website.]
• The headwaters region: send solutions downstream (physically and metaphorically)
• The Great Warrior Path, The Philadelphia Wagon Road, the Carolina
Trail and the Wilderness Trail Consciousness about how
have people lived within nature and how mountain and river ecosystems have shaped
and
been shaped
by culture through time (past, present and future).
Development of a regional
natural and social history S.O.L.
Strategies: people
To
some extent, people may have success distancing themselves from the majority
culture. But no one exists outside of nature. Beginning with responsibility
for the health of our own bodies, each of us must manage part of nature.
Participation
strategies: people
When
possible, Impact + Amplify seeks to work with and through existing
institutions of our culture (partners and stakeholders). We invite
personal participation in and financial support of our inclusive process
of thought and proaction and in our evolving programs by individuals,
faith or cultural communities, members of the Blue Ridge Environmental
Network (BREN), cultural and educational institutions, governments,
businesses and industries.
Participation
Strategies: financial
support
Tax-exempt
contributions may be made through the Impact account, c/o
the Plowshare Peace Center, POB 4367, Roanoke 24015.
Please
see: The American
Assembly’s document, “Collaborating
to Make Democracy Work” about the creative
role civil society institutions play in facilitating
collaborations
with government
and business and with
each other [a copy is posted in the Resources section
of this Website].
Participation
Strategies: contact information
|
Impact
+ Amplify
Tom
Cain
Executive Director
|
Impact+Amplify
