Write an imaginary conversation between you and Wangari Maathai.
Answers
Explanation:
Founder: Kenya's environmental Green Belt Movement.
Winner: 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
Planted: 30 million trees in Kenya, one billion trees worldwide.
Helped: 100,000 Kenyan women, who are paid for planting trees.
Claim to Fame: Former dictator Daniel Arap Moi called her a "madwoman" for opposing his policies.
Believes: Environmental responsibility leads to peace and prosperity.
Current Obsession: Saving the Congo Basin forest, threatened by illegal logging, mining, and hunting.
Image may contain: Jane Goodall, Human, Person, Animal, Mammal, and Wildlife
CNT: The UN recommends that at least ten percent of a nation's land be forested, but Kenya's forests have shrunk to less than two percent. Are you making any significant progress in reversing that erosion?
Maathai: The situation has improved as awareness has risen. But so many people are poor, and they cut down forests as a source of energy and to grow crops.
CNT: How do you persuade people to plant trees?
Maathai: We tell them, If you don't take care of this land today, tomorrow you will have rocks, not soil. We teach them how to plant but also to work with others so there's a multiplier effect. We give them money for each tree that survives. That's a real incentive.
CNT: There's democracy of sorts in Kenya, thanks in part to your struggle, but there's still corruption and land-grabbing
Maathai: Corruption has infiltrated deep into society, so the guy at the bottom with nothing is hoping that corrupt leaders will come down and share a piece of the action. That's why we do civic education: to help people understand how corruption hurts them—how it makes them poorer, unable to send their children to school, unable to provide for themselves.
Answer:
Founder: Kenya's environmental Green Belt Movement.
Winner: 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
Planted: 30 million trees in Kenya, one billion trees worldwide.
Helped: 100,000 Kenyan women, who are paid for planting trees.
Claim to Fame: Former dictator Daniel Arap Moi called her a "madwoman" for opposing his policies.
Believes: Environmental responsibility leads to peace and prosperity.
Current Obsession: Saving the Congo Basin forest, threatened by illegal logging, mining, and hunting.