Green Belt Movement in Kenya - Essay Example

Introduction Kenya is a 582,644km2 country that lies on Africa's eastern side with Nairobi being its capital city. She has a rapid population growth. Her population is approximately 37 million people and by 2050, the projected population is 65 million people. This growth is partly tied to her relatively young population. More than four in 10 Kenyans are under age 15. Her economic performance has been declining. This and the rapid population growth have resulted in less income per person. More than half of Kenya's population lives below Kenya's poverty line. Records indicate that 58 percent of Kenya's population lived on less than $2 a day in 2006. Despite some progress, Kenya's population remains poor and largely rural. Around 71 percent of her urban dwellers live in slums. Most people are unable to afford clothing, food or health care (Yin and Kent, Para9). Professor Wangari Muta Maathai remembered the rich and bountiful land with predicable seasons, the climate and the temperature and very well watered fields with high productivity. The word hunger was unheard of in their days because the nation was well nourished and watered. Beyond the villages, fertile upland forests, wildlife existed in abundance. These were good sites where young people would conceive of their worlds as harmonious, places where minds and bodies would be nourished and sustained. During wangari’s absence, the nation of Kenya attained independence and changed very much. What struck her most profoundly was the land’s degradation. This was in form of soil erosion and siltation in to the rivers. This by the look of things was not due to the accident of nature but human activities that is, the clearance of indigenous forests to provide space for cash crops such as coffee and tea. It was, at heart, a question of interdependency: when the fig tree was cut down, the streams dried up and the frogs stopped breeding. Small matters to the tea planter who had felled the tree but the dense fabric of life obviously diminished. Maathai returned to her roots, using the Kenyan women’s movement and initiated an influential tree-planting program; the Green Belt Movement. This reclaimed the depleted forests and challenged the attempts to destroy the remaining forests (Poster, Para 1-5). “In Kenya, government corruption is a major cause of deforestation and pollution”, Says Maathai. The so supposedly protected forests have been clear-cut to plant marijuana for export. Lucrative trade in wood from illegally logged trees is also another cause of the problem of deforestation. These are dangerous elements in the government, lured by the money made from the clandestine activities. She concluded by saying that lack of a voice means that environmentalism can be merely said to be tokenism or opportunism. However, fuel wood collection is not the major cause of deforestation, but development is the major cause. Government sponsored development has forced farmers to switch to cash crops as a way of being part of the global economy. This, in addition to depleting already scarce natural resources, increases hunger and poverty. This calls f or a clear understanding of the importance of fuel wood to the families in the third world. Kenya gives a good example as the home of the Green Belt Movement. It leaves one with questions whether the government extension workers understands the pain of spending hours fetching for firewood. It leaves one in a dilemma of what to say to her children when you cannot prepare meals not because you are lazy but because all trees have been cleared. Many times the government blames the rural people, but I think search for ways to solve the firewood dilemma should be our joint responsibility. World Bank Group records that while some theorists argue locals collecting fuel wood is the cause of vast deforestation, it is vividly clear that the cash crop and other development policies are the true cause. Since the time of British colonialism, tobacco has been one of the top freight to come out of Kenya. The British American Tobacco Company has intensified the problem of deforestation. This shows the impacts of cash crops in relation to deforestation. Many farmers have stopped food production and switched to growing tobacco. The Green Belt Movement along with other environmental organizations plans to sue the government on the basis that it is in violation of the Forest Act. The goal of Green Belt Movement Kenya is to create a society of people who consciously work for continued improvement of their environment and a greener, cleaner Kenya and to plant one billion trees worldwide. It organizes Kenyan poor rural women to plant trees, combat deforestation, restore their main source of fuel for cooking, generate income and stop soil erosion. Maathai has incorporated eco-tourism, advocacy and empowerment for women and just economic development into the Green Belt Movement. Its mission is to mobilize community consciousness for equity, improved livelihoods and security, self-determination and environmental conservation. According to the projects organizers, Green Belt Movement Kenya has succeeded in promoting environmental consciousness, conservation of local biodiversity, community development, self-empowerment, volunteerism and accountability (Tucker, para 10). The "belts" had the merits of facilitating soil conservation, providing shade and windbreaks, providing habitats for birds and small animals and improving the aesthetic beauty of the landscape. During these local tree-planting ceremonies, community members turned out in large numbers. The name Green Belt Movement was used to conceptualize this fast-paced activity of creating belts of trees to adorn the naked land. Over 40 million trees have been planted across Africa. The afforestation process has helped reduce soil erosion in critical watersheds and has led to restoration and protection of thousands of acres of biodiversity-rich indigenous forest. Consequently, numerous women and their families fight for their rights and those of their communities and therefore live healthier and more productive lives. Through trees-planting Greenbelt Movement provides sustenance and income to millions of people in Kenya. It also raises awareness about the environment, civic empowerment and women's rights by conducting educational campaigns throughout Kenya and Africa. The Green Belt Movement Kenya is a women’s civil society organization that has been functional in Kenya for over two decades and which through environmental protection supports good governance and peaceful democratic change and advocates for human rights. By advocating for and training women to plant trees, the Movement addresses the problems of soil erosion, lack of water and deforestation. This activity empowers women by providing them with income-generating activities and by making them environmental champions. Networking and civic education support the tree planting activities. In paragraphs 10 – 14 of her work, Tucker recounts how Maathai came home from college in 1965 under the inspiration of both her education and the civil rights movement. She was the first woman to chair a department at the University of Nairobi. She noticed that British colonists’ decades of farming techniques worsened by the post independence greedy administrations had caused deforestation in her country. Wangari Maathai was shocked at the degradation of the farmland and the forests caused by deforestation. Heavy rains had washed away much of the topsoil, silt was clogging the rivers and fertilizers were depriving the soil of its nutrients. She decided to solve the problem by planting trees. Under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya, she introduced the idea of planting trees through citizen foresters in 1976, and called this new organization the Green Belt Movement which, became part of the larger struggle for democracy (Maathai para 4). The idea of encouraging rural areas’ disenfranchised women to plant trees therefore stopping erosion and improving land and water quality struck her. Soon, the government of Kenya noticed that the movement’s environmental lessons were spilling over into social activism. Maathai’s planters worked around police interference. She urged them to move with the wisdom of the serpent and with the gentleness of the dove. The Green Belt Movement established a Pan African Green Belt Network in 1986 that has exposed many leaders of other African countries such as Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Lesotho and Zimbabwe to its unique approach. Some of them have established similar tree planting initiatives in their own countries using the methods taught (Schleier para6). In 1976 to 1987, Professor Maathai was active in the National Council of Women of Kenya and chaired it from 1981 to 1987. In 1976, she introduced the idea of community-based tree planting while she was serving the National Council of Women. She developed this idea into a broad-based grassroots organization whose main objective was poverty reduction and environmental conservation through tree planting on community lands including schools, farms and church compounds. Maathai endured death threats and imprisonment while fighting for environmental protection and conservation. There have been several impediments to the Greenbelt Movement with the Kenyan government closing Greenbelt offices and jailing Maathai twice. In addition, in 1992 she was subject to a severe beating by police while leading a peaceful protest against the imprisonment of several political and environmental activists. Maathai was also publicly ridiculed because she was divorced. At one point Amnesty International had to come to her aid. These however have not stifled the movement and it continues to be a world-renowned and respected Movement (Maathai Para3). In 1989, Moi, the then president wanted to demolish Uhuru Park, a major green space in Nairobi, and build a skyscraper. Maathai and her followers staged protests in the park and managed to stop it. Confrontations that were more violent followed and in 1992, Maathai was beaten into a coma during another protest over political prisoners. Police stopped beating them only when elderly female protesters stripped naked, thereby shaming their younger male assailants. Maathai and her followers won again. In recent years, her campaign against land grabbing and voracious allocation of forestlands has gained international attention. The world recognizes Professor Maathai for persistently struggling for human rights, environmental conservation and democracy. She has addressed the United Nations on several occasions and spoke on behalf of women at special sessions of the General Assembly during the Earth Summit’s five-year review. Together with the Green Belt Movement she has received numerous awards, most notably the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. She was also listed sixth in the UK’s Environment Agency peer review of the world’s Top hundred Eco-Heroes. The Green Belt Movement Kenya has six core programs, which are the strategies employed to meet its goals. The first one is environmental Conservation or tree planting. The Movement has led a campaign nationwide to enhance natural beauty, prevent soil erosion and conserve local biodiversity. With Kenya's forest cover being less than 2%, Green Belt Movement Kenya engages itself in a campaign to promote the planting of indigenous trees in public spaces, private farms and forest catchment areas in order to preserve local biological diversity. Green Belt Movement Kenya bases its strategy on a ten-step procedure that ends in the purchase of seedlings from groups. The income generated through the sale of seedlings benefit the groups and it advances the goal towards reforestation (Maathai Para7). Green Belt Movement Kenya’s second program is civic and Environmental Education. On recognizing the need to strengthen the concern of civil society for the environment, Green Belt Movement Kenya established a pilot civic education and advocacy project with the aim of raising public awareness on the need for environmental protection and being active participants in the political process through voting. Participants received information on the environment, advocacy, culture and good governance and environmental justice through seminars offered at the Green Belt Movement learning Center in Nairobi. Most seminars involve resource persons conversant with the relations between development, bottleneck to poor governance and the environment. So far, approximately 10,000 people have been trained. Green Belt Movement Kenya collaborates with The Stroud Water Research Center to enhance environmental education. This is through the engagement of schools in a pilot project to increase their awareness in environmental conservation and sensitization of the community on the significance of conserving riparian reserves. It also actively involves students in the leaf pack study mobilizing them to conserve riparian reserves and the stream through tree planting. Green Belt Movement Kenya encourages planting of indigenous trees among community members and the students in order to enhance natural beauty prevent soil erosion and conserve local biodiversity. The third program is Advocacy and Networking. Activities of advocacy within Green Belt Movement Kenya began in the late 1980s when the government tolerated abuse of the environment and gross mismanagement. Green Belt Movement Kenya in response directed its advocacy efforts towards ending poor governance, preventing deforestation and ending atrocities of human rights such as corruption especially in the illegal allocation of public land and tribal clashes. To date, Green Belt Movement Kenya has made significant contributions not only in rehabilitating the physical environment but also in raising environmental consciousness. This is, through workshops and seminars on civic and environmental education. Green Belt Movement Kenya is well known for its efforts to save all major green spaces in the city of Nairobi that were threatened by illegal allocation. These areas include the Uhuru Park, Karura Forest and Jivanjee Gardens. The other program is the Pan African Training Workshops. In recognition of the challenge deforestation was posing to nations, a systematic approach was needed to curb the problem. Therefore, Dr. Mostafa Tolba, the then Executive Director, United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), challenged Green Belt Movement Kenya to share its approach and methodologies with stakeholders and development workers in Africa and beyond. In 1997, Green Belt Movement Kenya established a Pan-African Green Network to share its approach through two-week training workshops. The program’s overall goal was to share the approach and raise awareness on the significance of conserving local biodiversity. Green Belt Movement Kenya has held three Pan-African workshops since 1998, during which 15 African countries have participated (Antocicco, Para5). In addition to the above programs, Green Belt Movement Kenya has made Green Belt Safaris. The growing outside interest in the success of Green Belt Movement Kenya enhanced the community-based approach to environmental conservation. Green Belt Movement Kenya organized visits to community projects where guests could experience the work by staying and working with communities for a week. These visits were followed by a few days of conventional tourism, which developed, into Green Belt Safaris. The goal was to offer a cultural experience through community home stays. Here while participating in field activities; guests could enjoy an exchange with their host-families. These activities include seed collection, nursery preparation, tree planting, civic education and food security, harvesting, community projects, meal preparation among others. Green Belt Safaris has hosted 10 groups for community-based safaris since 2000. The Global Alliance of Incinerator Alternatives Foundation facilitated the establishment of the Earth Community Network in 2003. This created experiential learning opportunities for individuals and institutions interested in exploring ways in which they could live in a mutually beneficial manner with nature. This network, comprised of organizations from seven countries, inspires individuals and communities to protect and appreciate the natural world. These countries include Botswana, Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya and South Africa. In Kenya, the learning opportunity has been offered through the green belt movement, it involves a two weeks experience of participatory discussions and home stays. The participatory discussions are facilitated by the local leaders at the Green Belt Movement learning center and climaxed by a wilderness excursion for example the Aberdare National Park. Lantern Media records that women for Change or Capacity Building is also a profound program under the Green Belt Movement. This program for women and girls was launched in the year 2003. The program assist women and young girls to face the challenges of growing up, make decisions about the sexual and reproduction health. The skills and knowledge they gain help them to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. The program enables them to establish income-generating activities such as tree planting, food processing and bee keeping which engender the economic empowerment. Food processing and production help promote healthy eating habits of indigenous crops, which are known to have high nutritional value. The Women for Change program was started to promote a holistic approach to the needs of women and girls with support from Comic Relief, UK. The approach combines capacity building of women and women's networks, supporting local initiatives for food security, environment and income generation, providing skills for HIV/AIDS prevention and gender equity promotion. Through these programs Women for Change, provides Green Belt Movement Kenya’s assisted networks with a number of services and resources. These services and resources are as follows: the women for change are the links between the government and the community groups, these links help the two parties’ access information and resources. These have enhanced a systematic way of dealing with community projects and gaining a mutual benefit between the project sponsors and the community. They have been used to train with an aim of offering skills to the community for HIV/AIDS and early pregnancy prevention. They also involve the community in participation in mass action and events for awareness on issues of HIV/AIDS, drug abuse and degradation of environment. The women for change has been used as a benchmark for the revival of the women networks e.g. Kenya association of University women. It has also enhanced the networking of women’s organizations such as the Society of Women and AIDS in Kenya, the Girl Guides, National Council of Women of Kenya and University Women. According to Lantern Media, the Green Belt Movement has been gender inclined; it has given women a focal point in its activities. The Green Belt Movement has developed an international status for building a women-led movement defending the cause of the environment. The core work of Green Belt Movement is to empower women through tree planting, generating income and providing basic resources. The movement organizes trainings to build on the staff’s knowledge and experience concerning gender issues. The training allows participants to articulate their views and raise questions concerning gender and equality through discussion groups, focus groups, role-play, interviews, storytelling and other techniques. According to Maathai, the Green Belt Movement threatens well-established power because women are very much the center of what they do and it empowers women. Even though there have been continuing and constant opposition, the movement still develops and flourishes. She advocates that the government should support them instead of intimidating them to stop surviving and progress well. This is because they have a lot of potential only that it is been looked down up and under exploited. The Africans can do much to serve their environments if only their leaders can wake up and help them realize their long awaited goal of a cleaner and greener nation Greenbelt Movement Kenya has nurtured its relationships with various international organizations such as the Finnish Coalition for Environment and Development, CARE-Austria and NOVIB of the Netherlands, which enormously support the movement as donors to its various projects including environmental education, tree planting and food security. There is also the Heinrich Bohl Foundation, which funds civic education, charity projects and Pan African Training workshops. However, these donors require that the organization focus on self-sustainability (Maathai, pg 60). Maathai had received some support from the Australian and Netherlands governments and the Massachusetts-based Marion Foundation in the U.S., which works directly with selected grantees to help them reach their goals and which has been a patron to her and the movement. According to the foundation’s communications director, Mike Henkle, It is very hard for her to raise money inside Kenya, so the foundation creates situations for her to network and fundraise in the U.S. Marion plans to raise another $800,000 within next three years after having already raised $290,000 for Maathai. The U.S.-based Lion heart Foundation, which works with prisoners and the Solar Electric Light Fund to promote rural solar power in developing countries partners with the Green Belt Movement. The Green Belt Movement honours make people think they have a lot of money. However, it is unfortunate that people who could support them monetarily are tied in with the government. They mostly represent international organizations that want favours from the government (Motavalli, Para 5). In the 21st century, the Movement has been vibrant and has succeeded in achieving most of its set goals. Environmental protection has been achieved through sustainable management of the local environment, tree planting, soil conservation and boosting of local livelihoods. In addition to helping local women to generate their own incomes through such ventures as seed sales, the Movement has succeeded in educating low-income women about forestry hence creating about 3,000 part-time jobs. Today, Green Belt Movement has over 600 community networks across Kenya that care for 6,000 tree nurseries. Along with individuals, these networks, have participated in planting more than 30 million trees on private and public land, sites with cultural significance, protected reserves and in urban centres. This has led to the transformation of many landscapes such as steep slopes, forests and other degraded areas. Protection and restoration of habitats for local biodiversity has been effectively achieved. Kenyans’ attitudes toward the environment have also changed. Increased awareness of the impacts of ecological decline along with public interest in defending the environment, including forests and public parks and open space has also been realised. The green belt movement has several achievements that are evidence in the 21st century. The most recent count shows that over 40 millions have been planted with a 70% survival rate. Through other actions of the Green Belt Movement, 3000 schools have been created. The attendance and participation may not be as expected but they concentrate on informing children about environmental awareness with the hope they will not only use this knowledge, but also pass it on. People, more importantly women have been empowered. This newfound empowerment has allowed them to organize and lead advocacy activities in their local communities. The greatest challenge to the movement is poverty. In Kenya, it is sometimes difficult to take environmental concerns seriously with hunger and malnutrition being the overriding concerns in everyday life. As far as it will satisfy their needs, many third world citizens have no problem in depleting already scarce resources further. Some negative impacts of this include the community planting exotic trees that grow faster than indigenous trees which are a better resources but take long to grow. In most of these activities, desperation plays a major role. Last but no least is the challenge of uninformed civil societies. Lack of environmental awareness and basic knowledge among many farmers for example has made them start using genetically modified seeds unaware of their long-term effect on soil and environment. Conclusion Despite the Green Belt movements’ efforts, there is still so much that need to be done in Kenya. Deforestation is still rampant, there is still widespread poverty and democracy is fragile. These can be attributed to several challenges that have been persistent. The public awareness has lacked hence challenging the tree planting process and the conservation of indigenous forests. Lack of government support has threatened The Green Belt Movement’s progression. This is due to government policies inhibiting the work of the movement. Works cited Antocicco, H. Earthkeeper Hero: Wangari Maathai, (2006). Retrieved on 27th April, 2009 from: http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=Wangari_Maathai_MAG Lantern Media. GBM Staff Training on Gender, (2007). Retrieved on 28th April, 2009 from: http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/n.php?id=134 Maathai, W. The Green Belt Movement: sharing the approach and the experience, (2004). Retrieved on 26th April, 2009 from: http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=E9_4mHfU34QC&dq=The+Green+Belt+Movement,+Wangari+Maathai,+2006&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=_FE7lCnW8W&sig=OqBqtHoDFSYG1F2xWhioNzNEAYY&hl=en&ei=US32SfXeGoKb-Aa73uG2Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#PPA2,M1 Maathai,W, The Green Belt Movement Sharing the Approach and the Experience, (2004). Retrieved on 27th April, 2009 from: http://www.lanternbooks.com/detail.html?id=159056040X Motavalli, J. Wangari Maathai’s Movement is Built on the Power of Trees, (2004). Retrieved on 28th April, 2009 from: http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/a.php?id=12 Poster, J. Courage to Save the Earth, (2007). Retrieved on 26th April, 2009 from: http://www.wangarimaathai.com/a.php?id=237 Schleier, C. Greenbelt movement Plant for the Planet Contribute to the Billion Tree Campaign Planting the Seeds of Hope in Kenya, (2006). Retrieved on 23th April, 2009 from: http://www.wangarimaathai.com/a.php?id=205 Tucker, N. Greenbelt movement: A Catalyst for Change, by Way of Kenya Wangari Maathai's Vision for Africa Is 'Taking Root', (2009). Retrieved on 25th April, 2009 from: http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/a.php?id=36 World Bank Group, The Emergence of the Woodfuel Crisis, (2001). Retrieved on 28th April, 2009 from: http://www.filebox.vt.edu/users/vscholla/environment.htm#The%20Fuelwood%20Dilemma Read More