The Environmentalist
She is our most well-known sHero – Wangari Maathai, environmentalist, professor, mother, activist, icon. Thanks to her resolute nature and fighting spirit Kenyan forests have been planted, Kenyan forests that we would have lost have been protected and Kenya as a nation has the pride of having amongst its citizenry a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
Wangari Maathai’s commitment to Kenya’s environment is entrenched in our national consciousness.
Born and raised in Nyeri, Wangari was always a determined girl. Emerging top of her class in primary she was granted admission in 1956 to Loreto Limuru. Wangari’s determination and hard work was recognized early on and she was one of the 300 individuals chosen for the Kennedy-Mboya airlift in the early sixties. In America she received a scholarship to study Sciences at Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas.
While studying for her Master’s degree in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh, a pivotal awareness was awakened. She came across environmentalists eager to reduce and rid the earth of air pollution. They termed their movement as environmental restoration. Perhaps she didn’t know it at the time, but her life goal was cemented in that period. The lessons she came across at tertiary level deeply resonated with the stories she had learnt as a young village girl about protecting the forests which were the reservoir that provided food and restoration for the land and all its inhabitants.
In 1971, she became the first East African woman to receive a PhD with a doctorate in veterinary anatomy, from the University of Nairobi and went on to be the first woman in Kenya appointed as chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy in 1976; followed by an appointment to associate professor the following year. Not through making her mark, Wangari became involved in a number of civic organizations in the early 1970s such as the Kenya Red Cross Society, becoming its director in 1973. In 1977 she founded the Green Belt Movement – a grassroots women’s organisation dedicated to restoring Kenya’s forests.
Through the efforts of over 30,000 members of the GBM over 51 million trees have been planted in Kenya to date. Our rivers, lakes, dams and ecosystems owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the little idea that a group of people planting one tree at a time in a sustained manner is a goal worth pursuing. Though Wangari’s pursuits and environmental activism is something that is universally lauded today, in the nineties it was an unpopular idea. Protecting forests against land grabbing and bringing to the fore the role of environmental protection as a cause worth fighting for was a decades long political fight. Wangari suffered beatings, intimidation, government surveillance and character defamation for what she believed in. The regime of the time was not in favour of the ideas that she espoused. But together with the members of the GBM she kept at it – and as Kenyans our forest cover would be markedly different if not for that first step in 1977 to launch the GBM.
In 2004, Wangari Muta Maathai received a globally recognized commendation when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Wangari Maathai serves as an example to us all that change can be brought about by one determined person endowed with a measure of tenacity, determination and sacrifice. Her favourite story was that of the hummingbird who determinedly tried to make a difference in his forest, no matter the odds. Paukwa is inspired by the spirit, vision and legacy of Wangari Maathai who always reminded us that the best we can do is focus on our little thing, hers was planting trees – ours is telling stories.
Like each of the female firsts we have had the honour of celebrating this past month – may we each strive to do best “our little thing”.
