The planet needs trees. If there is indeed that carbon dioxide out there in the atmosphere, the only species on the planet that can actually trap it for us in a natural process of photosynthesis are the trees. Wangari Maathai More Quotes by Wangari Maathai More Quotes From Wangari Maathai Yet now the industrialized world is moving away from fossil fuels and moving towards renewable sources of energy. And because we have not invested so much into education, we don't have the technology and sometimes we don't even have the capital to buy this technology. Wangari Maathai technology energy moving It goes to local authorities and even to members of Parliament so that individual citizens almost become people who want to sit and wait for their member of Parliament to come and solve the problem. Now that won't take you anywhere. And if you follow it, you will see that it feeds corruption in the country. Wangari Maathai waiting country 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. Wangari Maathai logging atmosphere forests One of the reasons why I've written The Challenge for Africa is to save it. Surely there are so many problems we can solve in Africa, but first and foremost, we need a government that feels responsible to protect their own people from the exploitations, from the misuse, from the mistreatment that they can easily get. Wangari Maathai government challenges people Monsanto will not come empty-handed. Monsanto will come with a big bag of money. And because these governments are poor, when they are shown money for their research institutions, for their universities, for their professors, they are very quick to say yes, and I can tell you that when Monsanto came to Kenya, they were able to be given permission to do research in one of our research institutions, and yet there was not a single law to control such research. Wangari Maathai kenya government law I think [GMO] is one area where the is a need for legal regulations to make sure that companies - because at the moment, companies are the ones that have this technology - will not use this technology in a way that could adversely affect the people. Wangari Maathai gmos technology thinking Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival. Wangari Maathai survival people thinking We tend to put the environment last because we think the first thing we have to do is eliminate poverty and send children to school and provide health. Wangari Maathai children school thinking For example, they have land. The government of Qatar wants to lease the Tana River delta, which is in Kenya, from the Kenyan government, so that they can produce food there. People in Kenya need food. We have people who have studied agriculture. Why is it that if we really need food, we cannot go into the delta and develop our own food? Wangari Maathai qatar government land We see that the environment is something to exploit, because we see the environment in terms of minerals for example, or forests, or even raw materials that we produce on our land, or even land itself. We see it in terms of what we can exploit rather than the medium in which all of these activities have to take place. Wangari Maathai raw-materials land example As a scientist I cannot say we don't want to hear anything about GMOs, because these are advances in science. But I think its also important, especially when you are dealing with food, to be cautious. Wangari Maathai gmos important thinking Education of course is a very empowering experience, so many people who went to school also managed to improve their quality of life much faster because they could get a job, they could get money, and with money you could buy things that you cannot buy if you don't have money. Wangari Maathai jobs people school I was particularly talking with respect to aid, because that to me is one area that can make people so dependent, and unfortunately, that dependency starts with the government. Wangari Maathai government talking people People are dynamic. They change, and soon as there are enough of you, things change [for a whole society]. Wangari Maathai things-change enough people I have seen a lot of men, for example, who will make a will and include their daughters whether they are married or not. And perhaps the greatest change of attitude is that today, at least in Kenya, if you don't send your child to school - unless it's a matter of poverty or religion, and it is not that there no schools - then people wonder, "why the hell don't you send your children to school?" Now that's a very big jump from when I was going to school and educating girls was an exception to the rule. Wangari Maathai daughter girl attitude Now when Nile perch was introduced [into Lake Victoria], I don't think enough research was done; maybe it was done, maybe it was not. But Nile perch is a huge fish. So it ate all the little fish, and it grew into a monster which the local people could not fish with their little boats and their little nets. Wangari Maathai lakes people thinking One of the reasons why I say we all need to work together to save the Congo forest, because if we don't save the Congo forest, the Amazon forest and the southeast Asia forest, if those forests release the carbon they are trapping at the moment, much of what you will be doing in the North will be negated by the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. Wangari Maathai asia atmosphere together So GMOs, who knows? Maybe GMOs will come, they will get maize that produces double. But who knows what else may happen to the maize? Wangari Maathai gmos produce may The American government has spent a lot of money trying to reclaim, for example, the Everglades, and to allow the natural vegetation at the coastal areas to be restored because that was part of the vegetation that actually protected the hinterlands. Wangari Maathai government example trying After Hurricane Katrina, many people said that the levees were not as effective as the natural vegetation that had been removed at the coast. So that means as we develop these seaside land masses, we need to have enough knowledge to not regret in the future. We know that the US government is literally buying these lands back to allow them to be rehabilitated. Wangari Maathai regret land mean
