News

Saturday morning, 8th October 2011 was grey and cool - clouds covering the sky. We started out early into central Nairobi to say goodbye to the Green Belt Movement founder and Nobel Laureate 2004 Wangari Maathai. We gathered to pay our respects to Wangari at Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park where Wangari had famously fought former President Moi and his government to prevent a 62 storey skyscraper destroying the park – one of central Nairobi’s only public spaces. This was in the early 1990s during Moi’s dictatorship which did not accept transgressions. Wangari wrote letters to the US and UK governments asking if they would allow a high rise to be built in Central park or Hyde Park. Needless to say the funding for the skyscraper was withdrawn.

Wangari had a way of bringing seemingly complex issues to light in a simple and compelling way that appealed to people’s conscience and inspired action. This paved the way to a much bigger civil society movement with many more battles waged by Wangari and others. Wangari’s fight for democracy and protection of public goods especially the forests saw her beaten and imprisoned on several occasions, but ultimately lead to democratic elections in 2002 and later her Nobel Peace Prize.

Freedom Corner Lest we forget! was named after Wangari and the Green Belt Movement’s efforts to protect public spaces in Kenya. Later Freedom corner became a place of memorial where Wangari planted trees with visiting dignitaries from around the world including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and many others. In due course, that Saturday the great and the good of Kenyan society, and then the hearse with family and supporters, arrived at Freedom Corner. The gathering was half State funeral with Heads of State, dignitaries, pomp and circumstance and military bands. And half was what Wangari had wanted: a multi-faith presence, prayers and thoughts from a few closest colleagues and friends, the planting of an African olive tree by her children and grandchild, and a wonderfully hand crafted bamboo and water hyacinth coffin with a fern on top. Wangari had finally found a suitable use for water hyacinth – the scourge of many East African lakes – and even in her death ensured that not a single tree was cut unnecessarily.

Special moments that Wangari would have loved were when rural women from the Green Belt Movement sang a eulogy as the tree was planted and girls from Wangari’s old high school each stood with a tree seedling in their hands. Planting trees was, and still is, the first step of the work of the Green Belt Movement in rural communities – it is the entry point which takes people down a path towards understand the value of the natural environment and our individual roles in breaking the cycle of poverty and environmental degradation. As Wangari put it ‘by protecting of the environment, we ensure our own future and that of future generations’.

As six buglers played the final note for Wangari, tears flowed from the Green Belt Movement staff. I am sure others were thinking, as I was, how hard it is to say goodbye and feeling a sense of disbelief that someone so present and vital could be gone. Finally Wangari’s family were joined by President Kibaki, Prime Minister Odinga and others who lined up by the hearse as a final salute to Wangari. Then the Heads of State and dignitaries moved off and the hearse slowly drove out on the road to the crematorium.

The three kilometre journey to the crematorium took over two hours as we crawled along at slower than walking pace. The streets and sidewalks of Nairobi were thronged with people, marking her passing, paying their last respects to Wangari who we all affectionately called 'Prof'. It was a moment where you could feel how Prof’s life and presence had affected so many Kenyans, many of whom had never met her, but whose lives she had touched and changed. In life this was one of her many gifts, which together with her ability to express her perspective made her a powerful advocate for the environment. It was a fitting tribute to a leader and visionary who despite her global reach and authority was happiest when she was planting a tree with the rural people in the highlands of Kenya. To find out more about the Green Belt Movement and our campaign to honour Wangari Maathai – ‘I am the Hummingbird’- please visit our website www.greenbeltmovement.org

This article was originally published in the 'Pesticide Action Network UK' quarterly newsletter (Autumn 2011).