{news} Fw: USGP-INT Interview with Dr. Maathai (NewsHour, from Jan. 25)

[Justine McCabe]

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From: "Scott McLarty" <scottmclarty at yahoo.com>
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Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 3:22 PM
Subject: USGP-INT Interview with Dr. Maathai (NewsHour, from Jan. 25)


> CONVERSATION: PEACE PRIZE WINNER
>
> Online NewsHour (PBS), January 25, 2005
> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june05/maathai_1-25.html
>
> [Dr. Maathai is currently on a tour of the US
> (February 28 to March 11), with stops in the Bay
> Area in California, Chicago, and New York City.
> For more about the tour, visit
> <http://www.gbmna.org/>.]
>
>
> Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, the
> first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize,
> sits down with Jeffrey Brown about her ecology
> work and social activism.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: Thirty years ago, Wangari Maathai
> had a simple idea: To plant trees. It was a
> response to a growing problem affecting the lives
> of the poor in her native Kenya and many other
> areas of Africa and the developing world: The
> destruction of forests, soil erosion, water
> shortages and other types of environmental
> degradation.
>
> Maathai had won a scholarship to attend college
> in the U.S. and earned a doctorate in biology in
> Kenya. In the '70s, she founded the Green Belt
> Movement, working with mostly poor, rural women,
> who were given a small stipend to plant saplings
> of native species.
>
> She frequently led fights against state-backed
> land development and government corruption, and
> was once called a "mad woman" by Daniel Arap Moi,
> who ruled Kenya for more than two decades.
> Several times, she was beaten or arrested.
>
> But her movement has led to the planting of some
> 30 million trees, provided jobs and income to
> thousands of women, and reached into other parts
> of Africa and the world.
>
> NOBEL SPEAKER: Wangari Muta Maathai.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: In early December in a ceremony in
> Oslo, Norway, the 64-year-old Maathai became the
> first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace
> Prize. We spoke during a recent visit to New
> York.
>
> When your name was first announced, some people
> wondered why an environmentalist should win the
> peace prize. What's the connection between the
> environment and peace?
>
> WANGARI MAATHAI: Well, it's not surprising that
> people ask those questions, because this is not
> the normal area that the Norwegian Nobel
> Committee looks at. But it is, indeed, a very
> important shift that they made, because when you
> look at the world, what do fight... what do
> people fight over?
>
> They are fighting over water. They are fighting
> over land. They are fighting over grazing ground,
> farming land. They are fighting over resources.
> And so managing these resources, which are
> limited on this planet, is very, very important.
> Sharing them equitably, at the national level
> especially, is very important.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: One of the things that struck me
> in reading your book about the Green Belt
> Movement is how your work is so connected to the
> everyday lives of women. I'm thinking of the fact
> that women have to walk much further to fetch
> wood because the forest just isn't there anymore.
>
>
> WANGARI MAATHAI: It is important for people to
> understand that when I started, I did not start
> with that vision or with that obvious linkage
> that we are now celebrating.
>
> I started simply to meet the needs of a group of
> rural women who were telling the women at the
> National Council of Women in the early '70s that
> they needed firewood, they needed food, they
> needed to stabilize their soils, they needed
> fencing materials, building materials, fodder for
> their animals.
>
> In our part of the world, when the environment is
> degraded, when there is no firewood, when there
> is no water, when there is no food, it's usually
> the women who feel it first.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: And was there a lot of resistance
> to this attempt to give more power to women in
> your society?
>
> WANGARI MAATHAI: Yes. To my surprise, there was
> resistance. And eventually, I understood that the
> reason why there was resistance is because a lot
> of these resources were actually in the hands of
> a few people who were governing the country.
>
> They were the ones who were using the timber.
> They were the ones who were... who wanted to
> privatize the forest. They're the ones who were
> using... who were selling water or were
> controlling water. They're the ones who have the
> facilities in cities and urban centers.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: And this is what led you directly
> from the needs of the environment to the needs of
> democracy.
>
> WANGARI MAATHAI: Definitely. That's when I
> realized that it is very difficult to protect the
> environment if you have bad governance any place;
> that you need governments that responded to the
> needs of the people; that you need governments
> that listen to their people.
>
> But you also need people, citizens, who are
> sufficiently empowered not to fear their leaders,
> but be able to hold them accountable, to be able
> to demand that their environment be protected, to
> understand that some our human rights are
> environmental rights.
>
> You have a right to a clean and healthy
> environment. You have a right to clean drinking
> water. You have a right to fresh air, and drink
> and eat food that is not polluted or that is not
> poisoned.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: In an election two years ago,
> Kenyan President Moi's party finally lost power.
> Wangari Maathai was voted into Kenya's
> parliament, and later joined the new government
> as assistant environment minister.
>
> Recently, she's found herself in a new
> controversy after a Nairobi newspaper quoted from
> a talk she made to a group of constituents, in
> which she appeared to say that AIDS had been
> intentionally created by "evil scientists" to
> kill black Africans.
>
> In a statement on her website, she says she meant
> only to "warn people against false beliefs and
> misinformation, such as attributing AIDS to a
> curse from God," and that she is "shocked" by the
> uproar.
>
> WANGARI MAATHAI: I want to clearly say that I was
> completely misrepresented, that I didn't say that
> and I don't believe it. There are people who are
> experts. I would, I should really leave the
> discussions of the nature of the virus, where it
> came from, how it behaves, to the experts.
>
> I'm not an expert. I do not claim any knowledge
> whatsoever. But I was completely quoted out of
> context, trying to respond to questions that
> people ask as you try to tell them how they
> should protect themselves.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: You know, in every article I read
> about you, you're described invariably as
> "outspoken," as "tough." There was a quote from
> one of your sons who said you have "fire on the
> inside." Where does that come from?
>
> WANGARI MAATHAI: Well, I think that I am greatly
> inspired and I get fired also by the fact that I
> have had the privilege of studying in America for
> almost five and a half years. I internalized a
> lot, the need for freedom.
>
> And so, for me, it was very difficult to go home,
> where I wanted now to share the experience that I
> had in America, and face my own people trying to
> curtail that freedom, trying to prevent me from
> expressing myself, sharing what I knew and
> teaching what I knew.
>
> And I guess that is the fire that comes from
> within. I think I very much internalized that
> freedom, and you can't live in America and not
> have that.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: From when you started to now, have
> you seen great changes? Do you feel that you've
> been effective?
>
> WANGARI MAATHAI: Well, I'm quite sure that I
> would have achieved much more in those 30 years
> if I had been supported by my government, if I
> had been given the freedom and the movement to be
> able to do that. But we definitely have achieved
> a lot.
>
> And, most of all, you are dealing with people who
> are empowered, who feel that they can make a
> change in their own lives, within their own
> environments and utilizing the resources that
> they have around them. That's really wonderful.
> That transformation, that feeling of
> accomplishment and satisfaction is really
> wonderful to see happening to other people.
>
> JEFFREY BROWN: Wangari Maathai, congratulations
> again and thanks for talking to us.
>
> WANGARI MAATHAI: Thank you very much for having
> me.