Quote

We refuse to share resources we govern irresponsibly. If we are confident, if we have some of our cultural values, then we would be more committed to assisting our people out of poverty and creating an environment that can make it possible for our friends to assist us.

Wangari Maathai

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Environment
Govern
Share
Confident
Possible
Cultural
Friends
Refuse
Values
Committed
Make
Resources
Irresponsibly
Would
Creating
Assisting
People
Poverty
Assist

More quotes by Wangari Maathai

Image
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
Image
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
Image
The living conditions of the poor must be improved if we really want to save our environment
Wangari Maathai
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Anybody can dig a hole and plant a tree. But make sure it survives. You have to nurture it, you have to water it, you have to keep at it until it becomes rooted so it can take care or itself. There are so many enemies of trees.
Wangari Maathai
Image
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
Image
I'm sure that many people who are involved in an environmental effort ... they will be pretty much encouraged by this recognition.
Wangari Maathai
Image
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.
Wangari Maathai
Image
People are dynamic. They change, and soon as there are enough of you, things change [for a whole society].
Wangari Maathai
Image
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.
Wangari Maathai
Image
When resources are degraded, we start competing for them, whether it is at the local level in Kenya, where we had tribal clashes over land and water, or at the global level, where we are fighting over water, oil, and minerals. So one way to promote peace is to promote sustainable management and equitable distribution of resources.
Wangari Maathai
Image
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
Image
No matter who or where we are, or what our capabilities, we are called to do the best we can.
Wangari Maathai
Image
Education of course 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, and with money you could buy things that you cannot buy if you don't have money.
Wangari Maathai
Image
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.
Wangari Maathai
Image
Disempowerment - whether defined in terms of a lack of self-confidence , apathy, fear, or an inability to take charge of one's own life - is perhaps the most unrecognised problem in Africa today.
Wangari Maathai
Image
Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival.
Wangari Maathai
Image
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
Image
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