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We have a responsibility to protect the rights of generations, of all species, that cannot speak for themselves today. The global challenge of climate change requires that we ask no less of our leaders, or ourselves.

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
Today
Challenges
Requires
Responsibility
Leaders
Rights
Challenge
Asks
Climate
Less
Species
Speak
Protect
Cannot
Generations
Change
Leader
Global

More quotes by Wangari Maathai

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It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement's work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values.
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When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.
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The essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty. While we continue to debate these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter.
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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.
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We tend to put the environment last because we think the first thing we have to do is eliminate poverty. But you can't reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an environment.
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Sometimes I feel frustration at the bureaucracy for not moving fast enough to deliver in the way that I would prefer. But that is probably because I have worked for many years in the civil society, which tends to move much faster than government.
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Education of course is a very empowering experience, so many people who went to school also managed to improve their quality of life much faster because they could get a job, they could get money, and with money you could buy things that you cannot buy if you don't have money.
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I definitely hope to relax when I get back hope. I will disappear into the forest and be rejuvenated by the beauty of the mountains.
Wangari Maathai
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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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Those of us who have been privileged to receive education, skills, and experiences and even power must be role models for the next generation of leadership.
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I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me.
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All through the ages the African people have made efforts to deliver themselves from oppressive forces.
Wangari Maathai
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Disempowerment - whether defined in terms of a lack of self-confidence , apathy, fear, or an inability to take charge of one's own life - is perhaps the most unrecognised problem in Africa today.
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It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.
Wangari Maathai
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When you think of all the conflicts we have - whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global - these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resources are scarce, if these resources are degraded, there is going to be competition.
Wangari Maathai
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We think that diamonds are very important, gold is very important, all these minerals are very important. We call them precious minerals, but they are all forms of the soil. But that part of this mineral that is on top, like it is the skin of the earth, that is the most precious of the commons.
Wangari Maathai
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If you make mistakes that is alright because we all make mistakes and we learn from those mistakes. You gain confidence from learning, failing and rising again.
Wangari Maathai
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Now when Nile perch was introduced [into Lake Victoria], I don't think enough research was done maybe it was done, maybe it was not. But Nile perch is a huge fish. So it ate all the little fish, and it grew into a monster which the local people could not fish with their little boats and their little nets.
Wangari Maathai
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We’re constantly being bombarded by problems that we face and sometimes we can get completely overwhelmed. [But] we should always feel like a hummingbird. I may feel insignificant, but I don’t want to be like the other animals watching the planet go down the drain. I’ll be a hummingbird, I’ll do the best I can.
Wangari Maathai
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Unfortunately, the issues of climate change, unlike many other issues, are very subtle because the changes we observe are very, very subtle.
Wangari Maathai