GBM Blog Archive: July 2011

Kenya, Land grabbing and GMOs

July 26, 2011 - 06:50AM
Published by Francesca de Gasparis

On July 1st the Kenya government enacted the Biosafety Act of 2009 that allows Genetically Modified Organism (GMO)cultivation and consumption; as a result I started inquiring into the risks and advantages of GMOs. As I went through press releases and the personal accounts of people on the ground, I discovered that GMOs bring about a much larger challenge to Kenya: corporate “land grabbing” and the dependence of local populations to international corporations.

Happy Birthday Tree

July 21, 2011 - 02:30PM
Published by Kathryn Gelder

When GBM Project Officer Dionisio Ndegwa celebrated his birthday on July 16th, he didn't just receive presents or partake in normal birthday festivities. He helped a tree come to life.

For the past five years, Dionisio has planted a tree each year to commemorate his birthday. This past weekend Dionisio celebrated his with friends and colleagues at the GBM Lang'ata training center by planting a tree during a workshop on advocacy and communications.

GBM Participates at the ESRI International User Conference

July 15, 2011 - 07:55AM
Published by Peter Ndunda

July 11 - 15, 2011: This week, the Green Belt Movement has been participating at the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) International User Conference at San Diego, California in USA. It has been a great pleasure and honor to join an amazing group of people and organizations from more than 100 countries to share and exchanged ideas on how we are using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to better understand our world and solve environmental problems.

Planting for Peace

July 5, 2011 - 12:20PM
Published by Francesca de Gasparis

It may surprise some of our supporters that Kenyan armed forces have been working with the Green Belt Movement (GBM) since 2006 to fight environmental degradation, which is happening on a staggering scale. Many people associate the army with military action however the Kenya army has been planting trees with GBM since 2006.This innovative collaboration has now been formally congratulated with the presentation of the ‘Wangari Maathai Environmental Award’.