Wangari Maathai
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.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Technology
In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.Collection: Environmental
It would be good for us Africans to accept ourselves as we are and recapture some of the positive aspects of our culture.Collection: Positive
It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.Collection: Death
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.Collection: War
Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Food
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.Collection: Peace
Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.
It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.
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.
We need to promote development that does not destroy our environment.
We are very fond of blaming the poor for destroying the environment. But often it is the powerful, including governments, that are responsible.
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.
When you think of all the conflicts we have - whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global - these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resources are scarce, if these resources are degraded, there is going to be competition.
All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet.
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.
It is important to nurture any new ideas and initiatives which can make a difference for Africa.
Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys from time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.
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.
But when you have bad governance, of course, these resources are destroyed: The forests are deforested, there is illegal logging, there is soil erosion. I got pulled deeper and deeper and saw how these issues become linked to governance, to corruption, to dictatorship.
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.
I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.
You can educate people on how to preempt their own conflict.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.Collection: People
When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.Collection: Tree
In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.Collection: Leadership
You can make a lot of speeches, but the real thing is when you dig a hole, plant a tree, give it water, and make it survive. That's what makes the differenceCollection: Real
You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself. That values itself. That understands itself.Collection: Mind
No matter who or where we are, or what our capabilities, we are called to do the best we can.Collection: Matter
Every one of us can make a contribution. And quite often we are looking for the big things and forget that, wherever we are, we can make a contribution. Sometimes I tell myself, I may only be planting a tree here, but just imagine what's happening if there are billions of people out there doing something. Just imagine the power of what we can do.Collection: Peace
We can love ourselves by loving the earth.Collection: Earth
Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come... Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed, to embrace the whole of creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Fighting
Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but instill in them even more respect for it, because educated people are in a position to understand what is being lost. The future of the planet concerns all of us, and all of us should do what we can to protect it. As I told the foresters, and the women, you don't need a diploma to plant a tree.Collection: Mean
We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process.Collection: Diversity
When you know who you are you are free.Collection: Knows
What a friend we have in a tree, the tree is the symbol of hope, self improvement and what people can do for themselves.Collection: Peace
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.Collection: Climate Change
Those of us who witness the degraded state of the environment and the suffering that comes with it cannot afford to be complacent. We continue to be restless. If we really carry the burden, we are driven to action. We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!Collection: Giving Up
There are opportunities even in the most difficult moments.Collection: Opportunity
We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!Collection: Giving Up
We all share one planet and are one hummanity, there is no escaping this reality.Collection: Reality
Sometimes we become bound by other people's thoughts because we are not sure about ourselves.Collection: People
If Africa is left behind, she is going to continue pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, especially carbon. She's going to continue logging the forests, she's going to continue burning charcoal, she is going to continue practicing agricultural activities that destroy the environment, and sooner or later Africa's problem will become a global problem.Collection: Atmosphere