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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.
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
Thing
Health
Think
Environment
Thinking
Lasts
Last
Eliminate
School
Send
Firsts
Provide
First
Tend
Children
Poverty
More quotes by Wangari Maathai
Why has there been so much secrecy about AIDS? When you ask where did the virus come from, it raises a lot of flags. That makes me suspicious.
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Now when Nile perch was introduced [into Lake Victoria], I don't think enough research was done maybe it was done, maybe it was not. But Nile perch is a huge fish. So it ate all the little fish, and it grew into a monster which the local people could not fish with their little boats and their little nets.
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We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!
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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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The American government has spent a lot of money trying to reclaim, for example, the Everglades, and to allow the natural vegetation at the coastal areas to be restored because that was part of the vegetation that actually protected the hinterlands.
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Do not be naive. AIDS is not a curse from God to Africans or the black people. It is a tool to control them designed by some evil-minded scientists, but we may not know who particularly did it.
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As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service
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In Kenya women are the first victims of environmental degradation, because they are the ones who walk for hours looking for water, who fetch firewood, who provide food for their families.
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I'm sure that many people who are involved in an environmental effort ... they will be pretty much encouraged by this recognition.
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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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We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation to conserve the environment so that we can bequeath our children a sustainable world that benefits all.
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I know there is pain when sawmills close and people lose jobs, but we have to make a choice. We need water and we need these forests.
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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.
Wangari Maathai
Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival.
Wangari Maathai
When I first started, it was really an innocent response to the needs of women in rural areas. When we started planting trees to meet their needs, there was nothing beyond that. I did not see all the issues that I have to come to deal with.
Wangari Maathai
I'm sure the government of Qatar is not coming in to grow food for the people of Kenya it's coming to grow food to sell. If it can also sell to the people of Kenya, well, then good. I think that the moves can be helpful, but I think that the history that Africa knows, as I say in my book, has been a history of exploitation.
Wangari Maathai
I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.
Wangari Maathai
As long as we have all these conflicts, it is the women who will continue to suffer, so that is one reason why I guess as women we should really work for peace, because we know how painful wars can be to us and our daughters.
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When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.
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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