Getting to the heart of the matter

During an exclusive interview with Africa Renewal in New York on 19 December and published on January 06, the 64-year-old biologist spoke about her long struggle for environmental and social justice and challenged African governments to "do their part" to accelerate Africa's social and economic development. She spoke about the connection between human rights, democracy and environmental conservation, and called on industrialized countries to support African initiatives for peace, democracy and environmental justice. The interview is reproduced here in accordance with Africa Renewal's republication policy, which states that material may be freely reproduced, with attribution to "Africa Renewal, United Nations".

AR: Could you please talk about the connection between human rights and environmental issues, and how you came to it?

Maathai: It is not as if, 30 years ago, I saw the link and worked on it. I was responding to the needs of rural populations, especially women, who were looking for firewood. They were looking for food. They were looking for building materials, for fodder for the animals. They were trying to meet the basic needs in their communities.

I happened to be at the University of Nairobi at that time, teaching. At the same time I was participating in the National Council of Women of Kenya, which is an umbrella organization for women of different social backgrounds. Rural women would bring to the table the issues I've just mentioned.

In listening to those women -- and since I had grown up in the rural areas -- I immediately connected what they were asking for, with the environment, with the land. I suggested that what we needed was to plant trees, because if we planted trees we would get firewood. Of course it would take a long time, but not too long because we are in the tropics and trees grow very fast. At any rate I could not see an alternative. I said, "If we protect the soil and we don't lose the topsoil, we are likely to produce more food. If we plant indigenous food crops, we are more likely to get food that is more nourishing.

When I am confronted with a problem I want to know: What's the source? If I'm dealing with the symptoms, I will continue dealing with them for a very long time! But if I get to the bottom, I can deal with the cause.

I started seeing that we really needed to do massive rehabilitation of our land. We needed to stop soil erosion. And I realized we needed to do that in large numbers; we needed to organize.

It was then that I confronted the problem of democratic governance. I noticed that we really did not have a democratic system, because immediately we started organizing, the government did not want us to organize. The government said you cannot meet. You need a license. That was their way of controlling. I eventually understood that what the government was doing was preventing people from meeting, from sharing information, asking questions, getting to the root causes of the problems they were facing.

AR: You could have gone to the president and perhaps persuaded him to act, instead of mobilizing the people. But you didn't organize it that way. Why was that?

Maathai: I didn't organize it that way because in the beginning I did not even think anybody would interfere. I thought it would be almost automatic: if people wanted to organize, they should be able to organize. Why did the government refuse people to organize? Because the president himself did not want people informed, people organized. This was a way of controlling people.

By the time we were massively organizing -- in the mid-'80s -- nobody was paying much attention to us, because it was just a bunch of women organizing. But when President [Daniel arap] Moi started really getting a grip on the country, that's when this organizing became noticed. The government machinery decided it should not be allowed. There was need to control the information that was reaching the people.

Now, why do we not have adequate clean drinking water? It is because there is logging in the forests protected by the government. So if there is logging in the forests, we must ask the government that question. If the government is doing it to benefit itself -- to benefit individual members of the government or to benefit companies that are connected to the government -- then of course the government does not want anybody to ask those questions.

Another thing we have been very much concerned about is green open spaces in the cities. There was a lot of privatizing of green open spaces by the people in power, or rich people. They would take the space and sell it to businesspeople to build development complexes. But we needed open spaces. So if you're going to say you cannot privatize this green open space because it is necessary for the urban environment, then you're going to be in trouble with the government or people who are connected with the government, because they're the ones getting these spaces.

These are examples to show how I eventually came to understand the importance of democratic space to be able to protect the environment. And to understand that if you're in a system which does not allow its citizens to participate in decision-making, or demand certain decisions from their government, it is impossible to protect the environment. Therefore for me, the connection between protecting the environment, managing resources responsibly and allowing for equitable distribution of these resources to avoid conflict required democratic space. The [Nobel] committee recognized this holistic approach -- that we need democratic space to be able to manage our resources responsibly, sustainably and to be able to share them equitably.

Otherwise, sooner or later there will be conflict. And we had quite a bit in the country [Kenya]. Sometimes it can flare into major conflicts such as we saw in Rwanda, or as we are seeing in Darfur. [There are] many examples in the world. What are people fighting over? Natural resources. Where these conflicts are, there is not democratic government. It is a government that does not respect democratic space or human rights. It's a government where a few people are in charge and the majority are not.

AR: Most economists define development in a traditional way -- producing cash crops, industrial development, emphasizing trade. But you don't define it that way.

Maathai: No. Development to me is a quality of life. It's not necessarily acquisition of a lot of things. I have been using the example of an African stool. An African stool has three legs. On those legs balance a basin. One of those three legs is peace. Another is good governance. And the other is good management of our resources. Now this good management of our resources, as I've said, includes equitable distribution -- allowing as many people as possible to share in the natural resources. This allows as many people as possible to experience respect, dignity [and] respect of their rights -- and therefore avoids conflict.

When you have these three legs, then the basin to me is development. It may be a very small basin, but it may also be a very wide basin. That basin, if it is not resting on the three legs, will not last. It will collapse. Even in countries where we can think there is peace, there is dissension. There is dissatisfaction.

AR: What impact does the international economic system have on this stool?

Maathai: Quite often we are used to thinking in blocks. When we look at peace, we just concentrate on peace. We go to the United Nations and have a Security Council decision: how much money we want to use for reconstruction, how much for peacekeeping forces and all that. Another agency is looking at what kind of democratic space is needed. Another one is trying to see how resources are going to be managed. Everybody is looking at their own sectors differently. Hardly ever do they come together so that they work in synergy. That is partly why the basin doesn't hold.

The Norwegian Nobel peace committee has told the world two things. Firstly, it is extremely important for us to look at all these things holistically, together, simultaneously. Secondly, to invest before there is conflict. If we invested as many resources before the conflict as we invest after, we would probably prevent more conflicts in the world.

If we invested as many resources before the conflict as we invest after, we would probably prevent more conflicts in the world.

We spend so many resources trying to reconstruct, trying to rebuild peace. Yet before we went over the cliff, we were not too willing to work together, to work holistically and to invest all those resources to deal with the causes that threw us over that cliff!

Will the United Nations development agencies address this? I hope so. Will the governments in the industrialized countries address these issues that way? I hope so. Will the Africans -- I feel that a big challenge has come to Africa -- will the African governments address this holistically? I hope so. If we do, then we will have changed the way we think. We will have reached a new level of consciousness.

AR: Back in 1995 you gave a presentation at the Beijing women's conference that included criticism of the world economic system and globalization. Now, 10 years later, globalization is that much farther advanced. What are your views today?

Maathai: It has only gotten worse. Africa has not been given the opportunity to trade fairly. The trade balance, the trade tariffs, the rules and regulations which are required for Africa, are still very harsh, very unequal.

In the year 2000 we were part of the [debt reduction] campaign Jubilee 2000. The debt has continued to eat into the capital of Africa so strongly that many governments are still not able to service their people as long as they are servicing the debt. We raised all the issues why it should be cancelled, but the industrialized countries did not do very much. They did very little in terms of the HIPC [Heavily Indebted Poor Countries] initiative.

Unfortunately, our own governments have not done their part either. I remember the industrialized countries and even the World Bank saying, "If we cancelled this debt, it is not the poor who will benefit. It is the leaders -- who are corrupt, who are mismanaging the economies of your countries, who are undemocratic, who are engaging in wars and making it impossible for people to do even the little that they could -- who will benefit. Therefore it doesn't make any sense to cancel."

That's where the challenge is today -- for African governments to decide whether they want to continue doing business as usual or whether they want to appreciate this challenge that has been brought to us. If our friends want to assist, we need to create an enabling environment in Africa. An enabling environment will then require that the international system deals with African governments justly and fairly. But until we put that house in order, this international system will continue giving excuses.

Fortunately, there are some governments that have addressed some of the bottlenecks. Kenya is one good example. As part of our campaign, we eventually reached democracy in the year 2002. But the challenge is still on the African side to a very large extent, to not give an excuse to those who don't want to help us.

* For the rest of the interview, please click on the link below.
Further details: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=26407
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