Mother Of The Trees

Have you ever wandered through the underpass, from Washington Hospital Center, and entered Wangari Gardens? Have you ever looked at the community garden, the youth garden and the outdoor classroom and wondered: who is the woman who inspired all of this? Who was the woman who inspired these bee hives, this public fruit tree orchard and these vegetable gardens?

Wangari was born in Ihithe, in the steep hills of Kenya on the 1st April 1940. Her family, like most in Kenya, were farmers and when she was 3 years old, the family moved to a white-owned farm near Nakuru. Though there was regular work for her father on the farm, there wasn’t anywhere for the children to go to school, so when she was 7 years old, Wangari, her mother and her two brothers returned to Ihithe, so they could go to school, leaving her father to work on the farm on his own.

Wangari was an excellent pupil, who transferred from her primary school to a boarding school in Nyeri at the age of 11. There, she became fluent in English and converted to Catholicism. She graduated, first class, to a high school in 1956 and was one of 300 students selected to study in the USA, through the Kennedy Airlift, in 1960.

She received a scholarship to study at Benedict College, Atchison, where she majored in biology. After receiving her bachelor of science degree in 1964, she enrolled for a master’s degree in biology at the University of Pittsburgh. It was at Pittsburgh that she first came across environmental restoration, a subject which would define her life. She graduated from Pittsburgh in 1966 and was soon heading back to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to start her new job as a research assistant at the University College of Nairobi.

When Wangari arrived at the university, she was in for a shock. Her job had been given to someone else: a man. Unperturbed, Wangari spent two months searching and finally found another research assistant job at the School of Veterinary Medicine. She also, at this time, met her husband, Mwangi, who had also studied in the US.

1969 was a busy year for Wangari. She started her doctorate, became an assistant lecturer, got married and became pregnant with their first child. Her husband also ran for election to parliament but narrowly failed to get enough votes. In 1971, Wangari became the first East African woman to gain a doctorate, in veterinary anatomy, from the University of Nairobi.

Wangari continued to teach, becoming a senior lecturer in 1975. She became the first woman to be chair of the department in 1976 and an associate professor in 1977. She never forgot how her first job had been given to a man. She campaigned for equal rights for women at the university.

She was also asked to join the board, in 1974, of the recently established Environment Liaison Centre: a move that would change the course of her life. This put her in contact with the United Nations Environmental Programme, which had set up its headquarters in Nairobi. Wangari began to understand that many of the problems that Kenya faced were due to deforestation and environmental destruction over the years.

In 1974, Mwangi was finally elected to parliament. In the election, he had promised to find jobs to limit the large amount of unemployment in Kenya. Wangari combined the two ideas, that Kenya needed to restore its forests and the need for jobs, and created Envirocare, a company committed to planting trees to improve the environment of Kenya. Though a wonderful idea, Envirocare ran into serious funding problems and failed. However, as Wagari tried unsuccessfully to save Envirocare, her efforts were noticed by the UN Environmental Programme, who funded her to attend the first UN conference on human settlements, in Vancouver, in 1976.

Wangari returned from the conference reenergised and reinvigorated. In 1977, she spoke to the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK) and they agreed to support re-establishing the tree planting programme begun by Envirocare. On World Environment Day, they marched through Nairobi and on the outskirts of town, planted seven trees. This was the beginning of the Green Belt Movement. Wangari thereafter encouraged all the women of Kenya to plant trees throughout the country. She encouraged them to search through nearby forests, for seeds to grow trees native to the area. The NCWK agreed to pay the women a small, fixed sum (called a stipend) for each seedling they grew which was later planted.

In her 2010 book, ‘Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World’, Wangari discussed the impact of the Green Belt Movement: ‘the importance of communities taking responsibility for their actions and mobilizing to address their local needs.’ She also wrote, ‘We all need to work hard to make a difference in our neighborhoods, regions, and countries, and in the world as a whole. That means making sure we work hard, collaborate with each other, and make ourselves better agents to change.’

Wangari and her husband separated in 1977 and after a lengthy separation, divorced in 1979. He is believed to have said she was ‘too strong-minded for a woman’ and that he was ‘unable to control her’. In court, he publicly accused her of adultery with another Member of Parliament and the judge ruled in his favour. Shortly after the trial, in an interview with a magazine, Wangari referred to the judge as either incompetent or corrupt. The interview later led the judge to charge Wangari with contempt of court. She was found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail. After three days in Lang'ata Women's Prison, in Nairobi, her lawyer drafted a statement which the court found sufficient for her release.

The divorce had been costly, and with lawyers' fees and the loss of her husband's income, Wangari found it difficult to provide for herself and their children on her university wage. When an opportunity arose to work for the Economic Commission for Africa through the United Nations Development Programme, Wangari seized it. As this job required extensive travel throughout Africa and was based primarily in Lusaka, Zambia, she was unable to take her children with her. Maathai chose to send them to live with her ex-husband. While she visited them regularly, her children lived with their father until 1985.

In 1979, shortly after the divorce, Wangari ran for the position of chairperson of the NCWK. At that time, the newly elected President, Daniel arap Moi, was trying to limit the amount of influence those of her ethnic group held in the country. This is probably why she lost this election by three votes, though was overwhelmingly voted in to be the vice-chairman of the organization. The following year, Wangari again ran for chairman of the NCWK. Again she was opposed, she believed, by the government. When it became apparent that Wangari was going to win the election, her opponent withdrew from the race. She was then elected chairman of the NCWK unopposed. However, following her election victory, the majority of the financial support for women's programs in the country as awarded to another organisation and the NCWK was left virtually bankrupt. Further funding was much more difficult to access. The NCWK survived by increasing its focus on environmental schemes and making its presence and work known. Wangari continued to be re-elected to serve as chairman of the organization every year until she retired from the position in 1987.

In 1982, the Parliamentary seat of her home region, Nyeri, became available and Wangari decided to campaign for the seat. As required by law in Kenya, she resigned her position with the University of Nairobi to campaign for office. However, soon after, the courts decided that Wangari was ineligible to run for office, as she had not re-registered to vote in the previous presidential election in 1979. Wangari believed this allegation to be both false and without legal merit, and brought the matter to court but in the court, the judge decided to disqualify her from running.

Unable to run for parliament, Wangari requested her job back at Nairobi University. Her application was denied. As she lived in university housing and was no longer a staff member, she was evicted. Wangari moved into a small home she had bought some years before and focused on the NCWK. Through her work with the NCWK, she had the opportunity to work with the executive director of the Norwegian Forestry Society, Wilhelm Elsrud. Along with the partnership for the Norwegian Forestry Society, the Green Belt movement also received ‘seed money’ from the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Women (UNIFEM). These new funds allowed for an expansion of the movement: from hiring additional employees to oversee the operations to for continuing to pay a small stipend to the women who planted seedlings throughout the country. The seed fund allowed her to refine the operations of the movement, allowing the movement to pay a small stipend to the women's husbands and sons as well. As the males were often more literate, they were able to keep accurate records of the seedlings planted.

In 1985, the UN held their third global women's conference in Nairobi. During the conference, Wangari arranged seminars and presentations to describe the work of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. She escorted delegates to see the tree nurseries and the trees planted by the project: she even got delegates to plant trees themselves. She met Peggy Snyder, the head of UNIFEM, and Helvi Sipilä, the first woman appointed a UN assistant secretary general. The conference helped to expand funding for the Green Belt Movement and led to the movement establishing itself outside of Kenya. In 1986, with funding from UNEP, the movement expanded throughout Africa and led to the foundation of the Pan-African Green Belt Network. Forty-five representatives from fifteen African countries travelled to Kenya, over the next three years, to learn but how to set up similar programs in their own countries. They were taught how to combat desertification, deforestation, water crises and rural hunger. The attention the movement received in the media led to Wangari's being honored with numerous awards. The government of Kenya, however, demanded that the Green Belt Movement separate from the NCWK, believing that the NCWK should focus solely on women's issues, not the environment. Therefore, in 1987, Wangari stepped down as chairperson of the NCWK and focused on the Green Belt Movement.

In the late 1980s, the Kenyan government moved against Wangari and the Green Belt Movement. Kenya had been a single party state since independence and many in the regime opposed the Green Belt movement's positions regarding democratic rights. The government invoked a British colonial-era law, prohibiting groups of more than nine people from meeting without a government license. In 1988, the Green Belt Movement carried out pro-democracy activities such as registering voters for the election and pressing for constitutional reform and freedom of expression. According to Wangari, the government carried out mass electoral fraud during the elections to maintain power.

In October 1989, Wangari learned of a plan to construct the 60-storey Kenya Times Media Trust Complex in Uhuru Park, a large public park in Nairobi. The complex was intended to house the headquarters of KANU, the Kenya Times newspaper, a trading center, offices, an auditorium, galleries, shopping malls, and parking space for 2,000 cars. The plan also included a large statue of President Daniel Arap Moi. Maathai wrote many letters in protest to the development. She wrote to Sir John Johnson, the British high commissioner in Nairobi, urging him to intervene with Robert Maxwell, a major shareholder in the project, equating the construction of a tower in Uhuru Park to placing such a structure in Hyde Park, London or Central Park and maintaining that it could not be tolerated.

Wangari wrote, ‘When I see Uhuru Park and contemplate its meaning, I feel compelled to fight for it, so that my grandchildren may share that dream and that joy of freedom as they one day walk there.’

The government refused to respond to her inquiries and protests, instead responding through the media. They labelled Wangari as ‘a crazy woman’; they denied that the project in Uhuru Park would take more than a small portion of the public park land and proclaimed the project was a ‘fine and magnificent work of architecture’, opposed by only the ‘ignorant few.’ On 8th November 1989, Parliament expressed outrage at Wangari's actions, complaining about her letters to foreign organizations and calling the Green Belt Movement a bogus organization and its members ‘a bunch of divorcees’. They suggested that if Wangari was so comfortable writing to Europeans, perhaps she should go live in Europe.

Despite her protests, as well as the beginning of a popular protest throughout the city, the ground was broken at Uhuru Park, for construction of the complex, on 15th November 1989. Wangari filed an injunction at the Kenyan High Court to halt construction, but the case was dismissed on 11th December. In his first public comments on the project, President Daniel Arap Moi stated that those who opposed the project had ‘insects in their heads’. On 12th December, during a speech celebrating independence from the British in Uhuru Park, President Moi suggested Wangari be a proper woman in the African tradition and respect men and be quiet.

She was forced by the government to vacate her office, and the Green Belt Movement moved, once more, into her home. The government audited the Green Belt Movement in an attempt to shut it down. Due to her protests and the media coverage it garnered, foreign investors cancelled the project in January 1990.

In January 1992, it came to the attention of Wangari, and other pro-democracy activists, that a list of people were being targeted for assassination and that a government-sponsored coup was possibly going to happen. Wangari’s name was on this list. A pro-democracy group, called the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), presented its information to the media and called for a general election. Later that day, Wangari received a warning that one of the members of FORD had been arrested. Wangari decided, to be safe, to barricade herself into her home. Soon after, the police arrived and surrounded her house. She was besieged in her home for three days, before police decided to cut through the bars she had installed on her windows for security. The police then came into her property and arrested her.

She, and the other pro-democracy activists who had been arrested, were charged with spreading malicious rumors, sedition, and treason. After a day and a half in jail, they were brought to a hearing and released on bail. A variety of international organizations and eight senators (including Al Gore and Edward M. Kennedy) put pressure on the Kenyan government to substantiate the charges against Wangari or risk damaging relations with the United States. In November 1992, the Kenyan government dropped all of the charges.

On 28th February 1992, while she was released on bail, Wangari took part in a hunger strike in a corner of Uhuru Park, which had been labelled Freedom Corner, to put pressure the government to release political prisoners. After four days of hunger strike, on 3 March 1992, the police forcibly removed Wangari and the protesters. She and three others were knocked unconscious by police and ended up in hospital. President Daniel arap Moi called her ‘a mad woman’ and ‘a threat to the order and security of the country’. The attack drew international criticism. The US State Department said it was ‘deeply concerned’ by the violence and by the forcible removal of the hunger strikers. When the prisoners were not released, the protesters (mostly mothers of those in prison) moved their protest to All Saints Cathedral, across from Uhuru Park. The protest continued there, with Wangari visiting frequently, until early 1993, when the prisoners were finally released.

During this time, Wangari was recognized with various awards internationally, but the Kenyan government still did not appreciate her work. In 1991, she received the Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco and the Hunger Project's Africa Prize for Leadership in London. CNN aired a three-minute report about the Goldman prize, but when it aired in Kenya, the report was removed from the news. In June 1992, during the long protest at Uhuru Park, both Wangari and President arap Moi travelled to Rio de Janeiro for the UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit). The Kenyan government accused Wangari of inciting women and encouraging them to strip at Freedom Corner, urging the UN not to allow her to speak at the summit. Despite this, she was chosen to be a chief spokesperson at the summit.

During the first ever multi-party election in Kenya in 1992, Wangari worked hard for fair elections in Kenya. She also tried to unite all the opposition parties, as they had fractured into three parties. Wangari and others believed that such a fractured opposition would lead to KANU, the ruling party, retaining control of the country. So the Middle Ground Group was formed, in an effort to unite the opposition. Wangari was chosen to serve as its chairperson. During the election, Wangari and other like-minded opposition members also formed the Movement for Free and Fair Elections. Despite their efforts, the opposition did not unite, and the ruling KANU party used intimidation and the state-held media machine to win the election, retaining control of parliament.

In her memoir, Wangari wrote, ‘It is often difficult to describe to those who live in a free society what life is like in an authoritarian regime. You don't know who to trust. You worry that you, your family, or your friends will be arrested and jailed without due process. The fear of political violence or death, whether through direct assassinations or targeted accidents, is constant. Such was the case in Kenya, especially during the 1990s.’

The following year, ethnic clashes occurred throughout Kenya. Wangari believed they had been incited by the government, who had warned of the stark consequences of multi-party democracy. Wangari travelled with friends and the press to areas of violence, in order to encourage those responsible to cease fighting. With the Green Belt Movement, she planted ‘trees of peace’, but all too soon, her actions were condemned by the government. The conflict areas were labelled as ‘no go zones’ and, in February 1993, the president claimed that Wangari had masterminded the distribution of leaflets inciting her ethnic group, the Kikuyus, to attack another ethnic group, the Kalenjins.

After her friend and supporter Dr. Makanga, was kidnapped, Wangari chose to go into hiding. During her time in hiding, she was invited to a meeting in Tokyo of the Green Cross International. Green Cross International was an environmental organization founded by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. When Wangari replied that she could not attend the meeting, as she was in hiding and did not believe the government would allow her to leave the country, Gorbachev put pressure on the government to allow her to travel freely. President arap Moi denied restricting her travel and said she was allowed to leave the country. Although too late for the meeting in Tokyo, when Wangari was again recognized with an international honor, she flew to Scotland to receive it: the Edinburgh Medal in April 1993. In May of that year, she visited Chicago to receive the Jane Addams International Women's Leadership Award, and in June she attended the UN's World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna.

During the elections of 1997, Wangari again wished to unite the opposition in order to defeat the ruling party. In November, less than two months before the election, she decided to run for parliament and for president, as a candidate of the Liberal Party. Her intentions were widely questioned in the press; many believing that she should stick to running the Green Belt Movement and stay out of politics altogether. On the day of the election, a rumour that Wangari had withdrawn from the election and endorsed another candidate was printed in the media. Possibly due to this, she gained few votes and lost the election.

In the summer of 1998, Wangari learned of a government plan to privatize large areas of public land in the Karura Forest, just outside Nairobi, and give it to the government’s political supporters. She again made her protest felt through letters to the government and the press. Wangari went with the Green Belt Movement to Karura Forest. There they planted trees and protested about the destruction of the forest. On 8th January 1999, a group of protesters including Wangari, six opposition MPs, journalists, international observers, Green Belt members and supporters returned to the forest to plant another tree in protest. The entry to the forest was guarded by a large group of men. When she tried to plant a tree in an area that had been designated to be cleared for a golf course, the group was attacked. Many of the protesters were injured, including Wangari, four MPs, some of the journalists, and German environmentalists. When she reported the attack to the police, they refused to go with her to the forest to arrest her attackers. However, the attack had been filmed by Wangari's supporters, and the event provoked international outrage. Student protests broke out throughout Nairobi, and some of these protests were violently broken up by the police. Protests continued until 16th August 1999, when the president announced that he was banning all allocation of public land.

In 2001, the government again planned to take public forest land and give it to their supporters. While protesting this and collecting petition signatures on 7th March 2001, in a village near Mount Kenya, Wangari was again arrested. The following day, following international and popular protest at her arrest, she was released without being charged.

On 7th July 2001, shortly after planting trees at Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park in Nairobi, Wangari was again arrested. Later that evening, she was again released without being charged.

In January 2002, Wangari returned to teaching as the Dorothy McCluskey Visiting Fellow for Conservation at the Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She remained there until June 2002, teaching a course on sustainable development focused on the work of the Green Belt Movement.

Upon her return to Kenya, Wangari again campaigned for parliament in the 2002 elections. This time she stood as a candidate of the National Rainbow Coalition, the umbrella organization which finally managed to unit the opposition. On 27th December 2002, the Rainbow Coalition defeated the ruling KANU party and in her constituency, Wangari won with an overwhelming 98% of the vote. In January 2003, she was appointed Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources and served in that capacity until November 2005. She founded the Mazingira Green Party of Kenya in 2003 to allow candidates to run on a platform of conservation, as embodied by the Green Belt Movement.

Wangarĩ Maathai was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her ‘contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.’ She was the first African woman to win the prestigious award. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. Between 1901 and 2018, only 52 Nobel Prize awards were given to women, while 852 Nobel Prize awards have been given to men. Through her significant efforts, Wangari Maathai became the first African woman, and the first environmentalist, to win the prize.

In the statement announcing her as the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated:

‘Maathai stood up courageously against the former oppressive regime in Kenya. Her unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression—nationally and internationally. She has served as inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights and has especially encouraged women to better their situation.’

So if you find yourself in Wangari Gardens in Washington DC or by the Wangarĩ Maathai Trees and Garden on the lawn of the University of Pittsburgh or by the statue to her at Benedictine College, Atchison, then you will in the presence of a memorial to one of the world greatest women.