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That's the way I do things when I want to celebrate, I always plant a tree.

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
Celebrate
Plant
Tree
Way
Always
Things

More quotes by Wangari Maathai

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You cannot blame the mismanagement of the economy or the fact that we have not invested adequately in education in order to give our people the knowledge, the skills and the technology that they need in order to be able to use the resources that Africa has to gain wealth
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Sometimes we become bound by other people's thoughts because we are not sure about ourselves.
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It was easy for me to be ridiculed and for both men and women to perceive that maybe I'm a bit crazy because I'm educated in the West and I have lost some of my basic decency as an African woman.
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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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Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival.
Wangari Maathai
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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.
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I think some of these solutions are prepared in an office without a full understanding of the local situation.
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Nobody in the world is completely dependent on another person, but we are all interdependent.
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There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.
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You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself. That values itself. That understands itself.
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Resources on the planet are limited, and limited resources can come to an end. But there are also a lot of resources that are renewable. A lot of land, for example, can be reclaimed from the encroaching deserts.
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All through the ages the African people have made efforts to deliver themselves from oppressive forces.
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For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all.
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
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I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.
Wangari Maathai
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As a scientist I cannot say we don't want to hear anything about GMOs, because these are advances in science. But I think its also important, especially when you are dealing with food, to be cautious.
Wangari Maathai
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We need to promote development that does not destroy our environment.
Wangari Maathai
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One of the reasons why I've written The Challenge for Africa is to save it. Surely there are so many problems we can solve in Africa, but first and foremost, we need a government that feels responsible to protect their own people from the exploitations, from the misuse, from the mistreatment that they can easily get.
Wangari Maathai
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We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind.
Wangari Maathai
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You can't reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an environment.
Wangari Maathai