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We need to promote development that does not destroy our environment.

Wangari Maathai

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Wangari Maathai
Age: 71 †
Born: 1940
Born: April 1
Died: 2011
Died: September 25
Biologist
Environmentalist
Political Activist
Politician
Teacher
Veterinarian
Wangari Maathaï
Maathai
Wangari Maathai
Environment
Doe
Need
Needs
Promote
Destroy
Development

More quotes by Wangari Maathai

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Nobody in the world is completely dependent on another person, but we are all interdependent.
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You can make a lot of speeches, but the real thing is when you dig a hole, plant a tree, give it water, and make it survive. That's what makes the difference
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When people can't use you, they ridicule what you represent. I was lucky that I understood that, because when one does not understand that, it is very easy to be broken and to be subdued.
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First of all, farmers should work with universities and research institutions in the country, and hopefully with the government.
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What people see as fearlessness is really persistence. Because I am focused on the solution, I don't see the danger.
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It is wonderful when you don't have the fear, and a lot of the time I don't ... I focus on what needs to be done instead.
Wangari Maathai
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We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process.
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When I first started, it was really an innocent response to the needs of women in rural areas. When we started planting trees to meet their needs, there was nothing beyond that. I did not see all the issues that I have to come to deal with.
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You can educate people on how to preempt their own conflict.
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Using trees as a symbol of peace is in keeping with a widespread African tradition. For example, the elders of the Kikuyu carried a staff from the thigi tree that, when placed between two disputing sides, caused them to stop fighting and seek reconciliation. Many communities in Africa have these traditions.
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I'm sure that many people who are involved in an environmental effort ... they will be pretty much encouraged by this recognition.
Wangari Maathai
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Sometimes we become bound by other people's thoughts because we are not sure about ourselves.
Wangari Maathai
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But when you have bad governance, of course, these resources are destroyed: The forests are deforested, there is illegal logging, there is soil erosion. I got pulled deeper and deeper and saw how these issues become linked to governance, to corruption, to dictatorship.
Wangari Maathai
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Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival.
Wangari Maathai
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Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.
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An individual citizen cannot protect himself from the powers of large corporations or external governments. It is the responsibility of the government to protect its citizens.
Wangari Maathai
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When resources are degraded, we start competing for them, whether it is at the local level in Kenya, where we had tribal clashes over land and water, or at the global level, where we are fighting over water, oil, and minerals. So one way to promote peace is to promote sustainable management and equitable distribution of resources.
Wangari Maathai
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I think that for anybody who has worked in the civil society, government bureaucracy moves very very slowly.
Wangari Maathai
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The American government has spent a lot of money trying to reclaim, for example, the Everglades, and to allow the natural vegetation at the coastal areas to be restored because that was part of the vegetation that actually protected the hinterlands.
Wangari Maathai
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All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet.
Wangari Maathai