Dr. Wangari Mathaai

On Thursday, the 23rd of March I attended the lecture at the USF Special Events Center delivered by Dr. Wangari Mathaai, the Nobel Prize laureate from Kenya. Dr. Mathaai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts in improving the ecological, economic, and social issues which face her country and Africa as a whole. In the late seventies, Dr. Mathaai started the Greenbelt Movement, a grassroots organization which assisted thousands of Kenyan women in rural areas to replant and plant millions of trees throughout the country. By doing this she empowered thousands and made them aware of the danger the degradation of the environment poses to humanity, especially the citizens of third world countries.
Dr. Mathaai is unique in the sense that she not only planted a couple -a couple million in fact- of trees, but also because she helped poor Kenyan women, who where in desperate need of an economic solution to their problem of socio-economic poverty, make a profit of this unique program. She convinced many large and important institutions to make donations in order to pay women for the planting actions. The unique aspect is that these women where not paid because they planted a tree, but because they where only paid if the tree actually survived and became a healthy addition to the landscape of the countryside. This resulted in the women to become deeply involved in the planting programs, and endured that they would resist any development which threatened the environment in which they planted the trees.
However, Mathaai also sought to advance the role women played in Kenyan society. In a country which was rife with sexual discrimination, Dr. Mathaai became the first women in Easter Africa to receive a PhD. She used her intelligence and education to empower women, and made them a deciding factor in the change the Kenyan people brought about to the politics of their country.
Dr. Mathaai also strived to combat the widespread corruption which beset the Kenyan government. For her efforts she was often imprisoned and beaten, but played a major role in changing the political landscape in Kenya.
Dr. Mathaai is unique in that she started an environmental program from the grassroots level. Many people involved in an environmental action in a country are not from there. The local population often times feels betrayed by environmental actions or are beset of a notion of disinterest or apathy regarding environmental problems. In many places around the world, environmentalists are seen as a threat to the economic order or are treated as if they pose a threat to the well being of many people. But thru her deep love for her country and its natural environment, as well as a deep connection with and compassion for her people, she made the everyday citizen aware that a threat to the environment will ultimately result in a threat to their well being. She was able to build a large amount of interest, and cause a deep sense of environmental and social justice in the thousands of people she has affected during her work. She did this on a local level, without much help from outside environmental agencies who often time gain as much from pollution as polluters themselves.
Dr. Mathaai’s achievements are a perfect example of how perseverance and the want to achieve a goal can produce results. With the growing importance of the philosophy of environmentalism, many will soon come to realize that there will be a great need for people who have the same vision as Dr. Mathaai, and for this reason she is a great visionary and pioneer in this new and very important field. Click on the title to go to her website!