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The women of the Green Belt Movement have learned about the causes and the symptoms of environmental degradation. They have begun to appreciate that they, rather than their government, ought to be the custodians of the 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
Causes
Begun
Rather
Environmental
Women
Appreciate
Government
Green
Custodians
Ought
Belt
Movement
Degradation
Environment
Belts
Learned
Symptoms
More quotes by Wangari Maathai
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.
Wangari Maathai
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
It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
Wangari Maathai
Because I was a woman, I was vulnerable. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman.'
Wangari Maathai
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
The developed world should be willing to help [Africa] and support her and make this energy affordable.
Wangari Maathai
Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect.
Wangari Maathai
What a friend we have in a tree, the tree is the symbol of hope, self improvement and what people can do for themselves.
Wangari Maathai
Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
Wangari Maathai
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.
Wangari Maathai
First of all, farmers should work with universities and research institutions in the country, and hopefully with the government.
Wangari Maathai
That's the way I do things when I want to celebrate, I always plant a tree. And so I got an indigenous tree, called Nandi flame, it has this beautiful red flowers. When it is in flower it is like it is in flame.
Wangari Maathai
Obviously the world is moving away from high carbon energy to low carbon energy, and eventually moving away toward renewable energy. So it is in the interest of Africa to move towards that, because that's where the world is moving.
Wangari Maathai
Education 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. Once people see that you improve your life if you are educated, then education becomes a valuable tool and people want it.
Wangari Maathai
No matter who or where we are, or what our capabilities, we are called to do the best we can.
Wangari Maathai
We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind.
Wangari Maathai
We can love ourselves by loving the earth.
Wangari Maathai
I was particularly talking with respect to aid, because that to me is one area that can make people so dependent, and unfortunately, that dependency starts with the government.
Wangari Maathai
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.
Wangari Maathai
The planet needs trees. If there is indeed that carbon dioxide out there in the atmosphere, the only species on the planet that can actually trap it for us in a natural process of photosynthesis are the trees.
Wangari Maathai
