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You can't reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an environment.

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
Poverty
Environment
Vacuums
Vacuum
Reduce

More quotes by Wangari Maathai

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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.
Wangari Maathai
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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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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.
Wangari Maathai
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Using trees as a symbol of peace is in keeping with a widespread African tradition. For example, the elders of the Kikuyu carried a staff from the thigi tree that, when placed between two disputing sides, caused them to stop fighting and seek reconciliation. Many communities in Africa have these traditions.
Wangari Maathai
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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
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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.
Wangari Maathai
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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.
Wangari Maathai
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I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.
Wangari Maathai
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We tend to put the environment last because we think the first thing we have to do is eliminate poverty. But you can't reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an environment.
Wangari Maathai
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The essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty. While we continue to debate these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter.
Wangari Maathai
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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.
Wangari Maathai
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Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
Wangari Maathai
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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
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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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We all share one planet and are one hummanity, there is no escaping this reality.
Wangari Maathai
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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
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It is wonderful when you don't have the fear, and a lot of the time I don't ... I focus on what needs to be done instead.
Wangari Maathai
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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.
Wangari Maathai
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You cannot blame the mismanagement of the economy or the fact that we have not invested adequately in education in order to give our people the knowledge, the skills and the technology that they need in order to be able to use the resources that Africa has to gain wealth
Wangari Maathai
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I think some of these solutions are prepared in an office without a full understanding of the local situation.
Wangari Maathai