Environmental News

August 1, 2005

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Documents Green Belt Movement’s Tree Planting Strategy
By Jason Sohigian

WATERTOWN, MA--Over the past 30 years, Wangari Maathai has mobilized poor rural women to plant 30 million trees in Kenya through the efforts of the Green Belt Movement. “When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope. We also secure the future for our children,” noted Dr. Maathai in her 2004 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance statement.

“If we did a better job of managing our resources sustainably, conflicts over them would be reduced,” added the grassroots activist, who was appointed Kenya’s assistant minister for environment and natural resources in 2003.

“I would urge all those who wish to celebrate the [Nobel] Prize to plant a tree,” she wrote in the preface to the 2004 edition of her book, “The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience.”

In her book, which documents the methodology of the Green Belt Movement from its founding through 1999, she notes that the strength of the organization’s grassroots tree-planting campaign is that it is an indigenous initiative, rather than a branch of a foreign NGO.

In the early 1970s, she began looking carefully at issues of reforestation when she realized that the most frequent concern in Nairobi was lack of employment. While working on her husband’s political campaign, she decided to address this need by initiating a tree planting activity to provide the jobs promised during the campaign.

Working in rural areas, she observed that farmers increased cash-crop farming at the expense of subsistence farming, farmers with moderate incomes often changed their diets to match those in affluent urban areas, and that because the demand for wood was higher than the supply, some families changed their diet to foods that required little fuel.

In response, Maathai proposed that Kenyans “save their country from the threat of desertification through active participation in reforestation,” beginning with a tree-planting ceremony on World Environment Day in 1977.

Such ceremonies had a theme, honoring Kenyans who made outstanding contributions at the community or national level. “Many in my generation marginalized them and disregarded their great achievements,” writes Dr. Maathai. “This was partly a result of colonialism, which condemned our heroes and role models.”

In a proposal that would be of interest in a Christian nation such as Armenia, Dr. Maathai shares her idea of starting a national tree-planting day on Easter. “To get the cross, somebody has to go into the forest, cut a tree, and chop it up. So there would be nothing better for Christians to do than to plant a tree and bring back a life,” she relates.

The original goal was to plant 15 million trees, since that was the country’s population at the time. The motto was “one person, one tree,” and many government foresters viewed it as unrealistic. In this early effort, women’s groups were encouraged to establish their own tree nurseries from which community members could obtain seedlings.

Government foresters were invited to teach the basics of tree nursery management, but eventually the women decided to do away with the professional approach to forestry and instead use their common sense, admits Dr. Maathai. They were encouraged to look for seeds in their neighborhoods, propagate trees that met their basic needs, replenish indigenous trees, and protect local biodiversity.

The movement appealed to women because they were expected to walk increasingly longer distances for wood as supplies near homes were exhausted, carrying backbreaking loads of wood for cooking and heating.

Dr. Maathai also reveals that the social structure of African communities was impacted by the colonial system, with women taking up the role as providers as men began to move to urban areas for employment. She reports that rural communities responded to the reforestation program because seedlings were issued to them free of charge, and the women’s groups were responsible for ensuring that the trees survived.

“The overall goal was to raise the consciousness of community members to a level that would drive them to do what was right for the environment because their hearts had been touched and their minds convinced--popular opinion notwithstanding,” writes Dr. Maathai.

The goal was to “sensitize them to become custodians of their surrounding environment,” and members of the Green Belt Movement were encouraged to embrace the following values: love for environmental conservation, self and community empowerment, volunteerism, a sense of belonging to a community of “greens,” and accountability, transparency, and honesty.

The following projects were initiated by the GBM: tree planting, food security and water harvesting, civic education, advocacy, and pan-African training workshops.

As women’s groups joined the effort, the tree planting campaign spread. Fruit trees improved their diets, and members were “asked to plant two seedlings for every tree felled.” In order to compensate them for the time they spent tending the nurseries, the Green Belt Movement purchased all of the seedlings issued by the groups that were surviving in the third month. The movement also sensitized the youth to the environment by establishing tree nurseries in schools.

The Green Belt Movement has developed a procedure for tree-planting, which has a remarkable parallel in Armenia Tree Project’s methodology in the Getik River Valley. The procedure includes the following elements: GBM staff disseminates information on the importance of tree planting to communities, field staff facilitates the formation of groups, groups prepare their tree nursery sites.

Next, groups announce to their communities that seedlings are ready for issuing and ask those interested to dig holes, and seedlings are issued only to those who dug holes properly. Finally, after a second verification of seedling survival is conducted and information sent to headquarters, GBM purchases the seedlings since they will now survive with little or no attention.

In the critical section on “food security,” Dr. Maathai states that among the leading cases of poor crop yield are the over-utilization of land and loss of topsoil. She also reveals that many farmers ignore organic and other sustainable methods because they are “convinced that chemical fertilizers are more appropriate.” She notes, however, that since “chemical fertilizers inhibit the regenerative capacity of the soil, thereby undermining sustainable farming and causing further land impoverishment,” the Green Belt Movement promoted organic techniques.

In a powerful section on reforestation’s impact on curbing soil erosion, Dr. Maathai writes: “Losing topsoil should be considered analogous to losing territory to an invading enemy. And indeed, if any country were so threatened, it would mobilize all available resources, including a heavily armed military, to protect the priceless land.”

She declares that the Kenyan government continues to allow the politically well-connected to use dubious means to generate income at the expense of local entrepreneurs. She also expresses concern about “the unregulated opening of national borders to foreign investors, who have more capital, knowledge, and skills compared with local competitors,” because local entrepreneurs are “pushed to the periphery of their own economy.” She concludes that a good government should protect the interests of its people.

In the area of advocacy, the GBM stopped the construction of a 62-story building in Uhuru Park, advocated for the cancellation of unpayable debts, and directed efforts against corruption, especially in relation to public spaces that the government continues to illegally allocate to private developers. “The public have become increasingly involved in advocacy because they have seen its positive impact,” she writes. “Citizens are gradually becoming empowered.”

In recent years, the GBM began venturing into income-generating activities, such as Green Belt Safaris and other eco-tourism programs. Early supporters sponsored between one and three trees, and Mobil Oil became a major funder, along with a number of European and US institutions.

GBM achievements cited by Dr. Maathai include rural reforestation, creation of employment, raising environmental awareness, individual and community empowerment, raising awareness of the need to protect biological diversity, an improved image of women, increased advocacy and networking, increased number of agricultural tools in communities, and survival of the GBM despite political persecution.

Citing some of the difficulties they face, Dr. Maathai explains that forestry schools and research institutions often give preference to exotic species which are promoted for rapid economic returns, so convincing local farmers to plant indigenous trees has been challenging. She also states that when people are living in abject poverty, they are less willing to learn about or care for their environment, especially if doing so does not directly satisfy their immediate needs.

“People living in poverty and desperation will not hesitate to destroy the environment if they believe that in doing so their needs will be met,” she writes. Some have been unable to perceive the long-term dangers of neglecting the environment, even though they have seen environments deteriorating elsewhere. In a conclusion which Pulitzer Prize winning writer Jared Diamond shared in his 2005 book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” she writes that by the time the effects are easily recognizable, it is probably too late to implement simple and inexpensive reclamation measures.

In a chapter on “lessons learned,” Dr. Maathai notes that the GBM uses tree planting as an entry point into communities since trees meet many felt needs of rural communities. She cites the importance of conducting community needs assessments, because if an initiative does not address a community felt need, “it is likely to grind to a halt after the initial excitement of the community subsides.”

She also states that if a community feels that a project is honestly run and designed to benefit them, they will support and develop a strong sense of belonging to it. “It is very important to interact with communities in a democratic manner right from the beginning of a development initiative,” she cautions.

When initiating a project, it is important to evaluate the existing systems of organization in a community, since it is counterproductive to ask people to form new groups if they have already established ways of organizing themselves. The project will also have a greater chance of success when its operations do not rely heavily on a small minority.

For the establishment of tree nurseries, groups need to be informed of the preparatory work, which includes searching for seeds and cuttings, transplanting seedlings, supervising nursery work, and record keeping. “Providing people with information during group formation avoids misunderstandings that could arise as a result of ignorance on the part of group members or because of greed,” she advises.

Despite the success of the GBM, a series of European-funded evaluations in the late 1990s concluded that if it did not change strategies, GBM and its constituency would become too dependent on donor funds. In response, the new strategic plan of the GBM included the vision to “create a society of people who consciously work for continued improvement of their livelihoods and a greener, cleaner Kenya” and a mission to “mobilize community consciousness for self-determination, equity, improved livelihood securities, and environmental conservation using trees as the entry point.”

“Environmental conservation must go hand in hand with poverty eradication,” notes Dr. Maathai in relation to the mission. “People must be helped to understand their status and that of their surroundings, and then empowered to take responsibility for their own destiny.”

The GBM decided to focus on “public land” in its tree-planting campaign, encouraging communities to plant indigenous trees and long-lasting fruit trees. In its first phase, groups were compensated for the seedlings they issued, but the GBM is now focusing on the “commercialization of the tree nurseries by the women themselves.” Since certain species of indigenous trees may not be available because of indiscriminate felling of trees, GBM will organize “inter-regional exchange visits” where people can exchange seeds.

“Because we are driven by idealism rather than politics, we have to train ourselves to be patient and realize that governments are not run by idealists,” she states in a closing interview with the Worldwatch Institute. “You have to be patient and know that we’re not going to change the big landscape--perhaps we can change the landscape of a forest,” she continues, adding that one of the major challenges in Kenya is that they inherited a mismanaged system--a system that had been “riddled with corruption and looting of public resources.”

One of the lessons learned from working in the GBM is that people would almost always blame the government for their problems, without understanding that the government is not the only culprit. “You may not be able to do much about the government,” she would say, “but you can do something about what is in your power. That is what produced the tree planting campaign.”

When she joined the ministry of natural resources, Dr. Maathai hoped that eventually the government would begin buying seedlings from the GBM nurseries, which could be bought in the millions for less than 10 cents each. “Green Belt people have produced the seedlings and I persuaded the forester to allow them to come into the forest and plant their trees,” she explains. “The forester is very happy because he doesn’t have trees and he needs them.”

< BACK TO ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS HOME PAGE