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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
Maybe
Decency
Woman
African
Easy
Perceive
Lost
Educated
Women
Basic
Men
West
Crazy
Bits
Ridiculed

More quotes by Wangari Maathai

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And so I'm saying that, yes, colonialism was terrible, and I describe it as a legacy of wars, but we ought to be moving away from that by now.
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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.
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I think what the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace.
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Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.
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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.
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The people are starving. They need food they need medicine they need education. They do not need a skyscraper to house the ruling party and a 24-hour TV station.
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You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself. That values itself. That understands itself.
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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The people are learning that you cannot leave decisions only to leaders. Local groups have to create the political will for change, rather than waiting for others to do things for them. That is where positive, and sustainable, change begins.
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Every one of us can make a contribution. And quite often we are looking for the big things and forget that, wherever we are, we can make a contribution. Sometimes I tell myself, I may only be planting a tree here, but just imagine what's happening if there are billions of people out there doing something. Just imagine the power of what we can do.
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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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Nobody in the world is completely dependent on another person, but we are all interdependent.
Wangari Maathai
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There are certain areas where foreign investors can help the local people to generate wealth, and improve their quality of life. Some companies, for example, Del Monte, which produces pineapples in Kenya, pay a huge amount of taxes, I am sure, to the Kenyan government, and they do create jobs for thousands of locals.
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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
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I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.
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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
Wangari Maathai
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The issue of carbon is one area where we really need to work together and if people don't have the technology they need, that technology needs to be made available and affordable.
Wangari Maathai
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Once people see that you improve you life if you are educated, then education becomes a valuable tool and people want it.
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Culture defines who we are and how we see ourselves. A new attitude toward nature provides space for a new attitude toward culture and the role it plays in sustainable development
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