Culture

Wangari Maathai on the relationship between culture and the environment
“Too often, when we talk about conservation, we don’t think about culture. But during our work with the Green Belt Movement, we realized that some of the communities had lost aspects of their culture that facilitated conservation of the environment. Culture defines who we are and how we see ourselves. A new attitude toward nature provides space for a new attitude toward culture and the role it plays in sustainable development. Mount Kenya, African’s second highest peak, is a World Heritage Site. It is topped by glaciers and is the source of many of Kenya’s rivers. Now, partly because of climate change and partly because of logging and encroachment due to crop cultivation, the glaciers are melting. Many of the rivers flowing from the mountain have dried up or their levels have declined. Biological diversity is threatened as the forests fall. Mount Kenya used to be sacred to the Kikuyu people. If the mountain was still given the reverence the culture accorded it, people would not have allowed illegal logging and clear-cutting in the forests. Cultural revival might be the only thing that stands between the conservation or destruction of the environment.”