‘She planted 30 million trees’

CATHARINE COOPER

I read the news aloud to anyone who will listen, “She planted 30

million trees, and she won the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Wangari Mathaai and the organization she founded, the Green Belt

Movement (GBM), planted 30 million trees in Kenya during the last 30

years. For this accomplishment, along with myriad others, including

the advocacy of women’s rights, broad based educational initiatives,

development of the tool of reforestation as a vehicle to stave off

tribal warfare, and an expansion of the foundation of democracy,

Mathaai was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

There was a level of backlash in the global community that the

Prize was awarded to an environmentalist. The expected recipient had

been the Atomic Energy Commission, and its attempts to stem nuclear

proliferation. There was additional harangue that during a war year,

what use was an environmental acknowledgement?

Yet a review of the foundation of the Prize itself reveals that

“the ways and means to achieve peace are as diverse as the

individuals and organizations rewarded.” Along with humanitarian work

and peace movements, the Prize has been awarded to a wide field of

work including the advocacy of human rights, mediation of

international conflicts and arms control, and disarmament. Henry

Dunat, founder of the Red Cross, and Frederic Passy, the leading

international pacifist of the time, shared the first Prize, given in

1901. The 1970 recipient, Norman E. Borlaug, recognized for his work

in food production and hunger alleviation, suggested in his

acceptance speech, that had hunger been an issue before Dr. Nobel’s

death, there would have been an award granted for its resource

development.

Surely the acknowledg- ment of Mathaai and GBM are equally a

tribute to the earth. In her acceptance speech, given in Nairobi on

Oct. 9, Mathaai expressed her thanks for what she termed an

“unparalleled honor” and continued to say, “By making this award, the

Nobel Committee has placed the critical issues of environmental

conservation, democratic governance and community empowerment and

peace before the eyes of the world. Some people have asked what the

relationship is between peace and environment, and to them I say that

many wars are fought over resources, which are becoming increasingly

scarce across the earth. If we did a better job of managing our

resources, conflicts over them would be reduced. So, protecting the

global environment is directly related to securing peace.”

The planting of the trees themselves stands as an act of our

salvation. Records show that during the 1980s, 530,00 acres of

tropical forests were destroyed. Of those, 21,000 square miles were

deforested each year in the Amazon Basin -- the size of the state of

North Carolina. Obviously, we need significantly greater planting

efforts if we are to regain the green covering that provides us with,

among other things, the essential building block of our existence:

oxygen. Deforestation, which releases vast quantities of CO2 into the

atmosphere, has been shown to have a direct link to the growing

global warming crisis

To bring that point home, a news release this week shows a

troubling spike -- a rise of more than two parts per million -- in

the CO2 content of our atmosphere to 375.64 ppm, measured over the

past two years. The level was recorded at the summit of Mauna Loa in

Hawaii where data has been collected since 1958. Previous rises of

similar magnitude occurred in 1973, 1988, 1994 and 1998, but each was

accompanied by an El Nino climatic season. This has not been the case

for the last two years. One possible explanation is a “weakening of

the earth’s carbon ‘sinks’ [oceans and forests],” associated with

global warming, as a kind of climate feedback mechanism.

The recognition that the Nobel Peace Prize has granted to Wangari

Mathaai and the efforts of GBM to spread their message of nurturing

environmental sustainability is well timed and deserved. Too often,

we take this gracious planet for granted, mesmerized by her bounteous

gifts of fresh air, forests, meadows, rivers, lakes and oceans. We

must recognize our roll in her conservation, and continually seek out

and support ways in which we can be better earth stewards. Head for

the nursery. Plant a tree.

* CATHARINE COOPER loves and supports wild places. She can be

reached at [email protected].