Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, is often called the Tree Woman — and for good reason. In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, an organization dedicated to planting trees and educating people in Kenya — and all over the world — about the importance of conservation. To date, the Green Belt Movement has planted more than 40 million trees, and the organization has played a key role in the creation of the Billion Tree Campaign, a new United Nations initiative to plant one billion trees worldwide by the end of 2007. Plenty spoke with Maathai about global warming in Africa, the connection between environmental and humanitarian crises, and the importance of optimism in the fight to save the planet.

There were some trees that were considered sacred. They were never cut, just left to grow and fall on their own. One such tree is the wild fig tree. Because it wasn’t cut, it sent a lot of roots very deep, and it fixed itself very firmly into the ground, and it therefore helped to stabilize the soil in these highlands where we lived. Also, because the roots went so deep, they connected with the groundwater system and helped bring water from underground reserves to the upper levels. Quite often, whenever you would find these trees, you would find a stream.

 

As people move into the cities, we tend to forget our connection to the earth.  When we congregate in the cities, we build houses, we create concrete, and we literally cut ourselves off from nature and the way nature operates.

 

We can start with something understandable and something that all of us participate in: the creation of greenhouse gases. And on a personal level, you can make a decision that you want to understand how nature operates, and work with it in your own backyard. The Billion Tree Campaign is partly to raise awareness about these issues among ordinary people.

 

Yes, very seriously. We have seen that the glaciers on Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro have melted. And scientists tell us that they have melted faster this time than they have in the past 100 years. We have seen with our naked eyes many rivers that used to be big rivers; they are now small, and many streams have dried up. Although this can be attributed to interference with the forest, especially deforestation, it’s also attributed to climate change.

 

For one, we know that it will likely interfere with the availability of freshwater. This will probably create conflict and war among people. Many of the wars we fight in Africa are actually over resources, whether it’s between communities themselves, or between Africans and people from outside Africa who are interested in its resources and find it necessary to access them. People fight over water, land, farms, and grazing ground. We know that in Darfur, one issue that causes conflict is grazing ground. This situation can only get worse if the environmental crisis continues.