World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008 - (Page 8)

Asked & Answered Sowing Peace Wangari Maathai Offers Solutions to the Food Crisis Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai’s simple but ingenious strategy to pay women to plant trees helps solve two problems—unemployment and deforestation—all at once. Her grassroots Green Belt Movement is responsible for the planting of more than 40 million trees across Africa. Today, with political strife roiling her native Kenya and a food crisis affecting people around the globe, the work of helping people earn money while protecting forests, water and soil is as important as ever. Interviewed by Austin Gelder, World Ark Associate Editor Wangari Maathai champions human rights, peace building and equality through environmental protection and restoration. Photo: Ray White OPPOSITE PAGE: The Green Belt Movement supports 6,000 tree nurseries throughout Kenya. Photo: Mia MacDonald How did winning the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize affect your work? The award exposed our work in a tremendous way. Suddenly the whole world wants to know what we’re doing. That’s a wonderful thing because we’re able to explain our work. It’s an extraordinary opportunity, but it also puts a lot of pressure on you, especially when you are a grassroots organization. It’s a challenge to respond to the demand that comes to your door from people who want to know more about your work, people who want to be inspired by your work. The food crisis has been in the news quite a bit lately. How does your work with the Green Belt Movement address the food crisis? Our work protecting the soil—making sure that we don’t lose topsoil into rivers and lakes—is a very direct way to ensure farmers can use this Earth to produce their food. Also, we encourage farmers to plant food they will eat. Many of the trees we plant are fruit trees. We also encourage them to protect watersheds. One of our major activities is to protect forests, and forests are very important in regulating temperatures and ensuring that we have clean water and that the rivers are flowing. You are best known for your work with the Green Belt Movement, but you’re involved in politics, too. Why is it important to do both? Everything we do, whether it is protecting forests or managing natural resources, is governed by the laws of the country. If you have bad laws it is harder to do this work. For example, in our country we had laws that allowed a president to give away forest land or open spaces in cities for development. These are bad laws, and the only people who can change these laws are members of parliament. Sometimes you may have members of parliament who are not really aware of how the environment is affected or destroyed by these bad laws, so it is very important to get involved so you can create new, better laws. What is the solution to the political problems Kenya is facing? One solution is to address the issue of land distribution. Some people have huge tracts of land they are not necessarily using, it is only for speculation. At the same time you have large numbers of people who have very little land or no land at all. There are also many people who have moved away from their land and ended up buying land somewhere else, but there are many disputes about owning land in different parts of the country. It is a constitutional issue, a local issue, a political issue. One of the agreements that was made as a part of the solution to the current crisis is that a new constitution will be written, so our hope is that in the new constitution this land issue will be resolved. What is the solution to world hunger and poverty? I know there are lots of people who say, “Let us eat what we produce locally.” It’s a great idea but may not always work. Others say, “Let us promote biotechnology and bioengineering to produce more food.” We are always afraid of new technologies and new www.heifer.org 8 September/October 2008 | WORLD ARK http://www.heifer.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008

World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008 Contents Letters For the Record The Good Life Asked and Answered Digging Up the Past Not a Drop to Drink Facing the Ogres of Progress Mixed Media Heifer Bulletin Heifer Spirit World Ark Market Calendar First Person

World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008

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