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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.
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
Crazy
Bits
Ridiculed
Maybe
Decency
Woman
African
Easy
Perceive
Lost
Educated
Women
Basic
Men
West
More quotes by Wangari Maathai
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.
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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.
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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.
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I don't believe [Africa] is ready to shift - and she needs to shift. So she needs to get the technology and she can only get that technology from the developed world.
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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 think [GMO] is one area where the is a need for legal regulations to make sure that companies - because at the moment, companies are the ones that have this technology - will not use this technology in a way that could adversely affect the people.
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I knew that I was not doing anything wrong, and I knew in my mind I was doing the right thing. I knew that the people who were going against me were not going against me for a good purpose. I knew that they were trying to justify their corruption and misgovernance.
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We see that the environment is something to exploit, because we see the environment in terms of minerals for example, or forests, or even raw materials that we produce on our land, or even land itself. We see it in terms of what we can exploit rather than the medium in which all of these activities have to take place.
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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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The little grassroots people can change this world.
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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.
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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.
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Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.
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We are very fond of blaming the poor for destroying the environment. But often it is the powerful, including governments, that are responsible.
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The developed world should be willing to help [Africa] and support her and make this energy affordable.
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We do the right thing not to please people but because it's the only logically reasonable thing to do, as long as we are being honest with ourselves - even if we are the only ones.
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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.
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The living conditions of the poor must be improved if we really want to save our environment
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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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Why do we have to have people come from afar to come and grow food for us, or to grow food to sell to us? It is partly because we are almost becoming used to people doing things for us. Like somebody else is going to solve that problem for us. And that to me is very disempowering system.
Wangari Maathai
