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.
For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all.
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.
It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement’s work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values.
For us who are now in power, we need to be challenged to serve the people and ignore our own egos and personal interests so that we can really demonstrate to other African states that it is possible to share power without going to war.
There’s a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.
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.
It’s a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.
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.
The little grassroots people can change this world.
What is really important is to educate people how to protect themselves and how to ensure that, despite their poverty, they can get tested and access drugs. So I just hope that those who can will make those drugs available.
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.
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.’
All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet.
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.
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.
The people are learning that you cannot leave decisions only to leaders. Local groups have to create the political will for change, rather than waiting for others to do things for them. That is where positive, and sustainable, change begins.
It would be good for us Africans to accept ourselves as we are and recapture some of the positive aspects of our culture.
Culture is coded wisdom.
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.