Taking Root Wangari Maathai

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Vision Share

Yesterday was International Women’s day and I sent out a newsletter thanking all the women who have helped and supported me in a range of ways throughout my life.

Today I want to remember and thank the amazing Wangari Maathai for the incredible work she has done globally in sustaining trees across the globe and being responsible for the planting of 45 million trees in her homeland of Kenya. In the 1970′s she founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya an environmental organization that promoted the planting of trees, women’s rights and environmental conservatism. The Green Belt Movement has contributed to the lives and businesses of thousands of women across Kenya by creating rural employment in rural areas. In 2004 she became the first ever African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

I would love to have met this amazing woman and shared a conversation with her about our shared love and appreciation of trees and how much they add to the possibility of human life here on earth. When she started her work she was driven by passion. She had no idea that her actions would turn into a global movement. She was quoted as saying,

“There’s a general culture in this country to cut down all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.”

“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 come to deal with.”

We do not have to see the end as many of us believe to begin. By doing and responding to what feels right can be a catalyst for great things.

Her work reminded me of a lovely book I have entitled, The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono. It’s a story of a shepherd who plants trees over a number of years and slowly transforms the barren landscape he is surrounded by where people believed nothing would grow.  Though this story is fiction the two stories hold many similarities.

Wangari passed away from cancer complications in 2011.

This blog post today is in remembrance of the great tree planter warrior Wangari Maathai (1st April 1940-25th September 2011).