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I think that for anybody who has worked in the civil society, government bureaucracy moves very very slowly.
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
Think
Moves
Thinking
Slowly
Civil
Worked
Anybody
Society
Moving
Government
Bureaucracy
More quotes by Wangari Maathai
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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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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Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.
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You can't reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an 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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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.
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We tend to put the environment last because we think the first thing we have to do is eliminate poverty and send children to school and provide health.
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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.'
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Tradition sometimes excludes the girl child from inheriting or single women may not want to be perceived as pursuing too much property. The law has come a long way in favor of the woman, but it is the tradition, the attitudes, that we often have to fight.
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Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival.
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African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.
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It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.
Wangari Maathai
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.
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.
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I’m very conscious of the fact that you can’t do it alone. It’s teamwork. When you do it alone you run the risk that when you are no longer there nobody else will do it.
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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.
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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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You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.
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I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.
Wangari Maathai
