MAATHAI VERSUS THE IMF AND WORLD BANK

Professor Wangari Maathai (Nobel laureate and environment‎alist) was born in the central highlands of Kenya in 1940.

Back in the 1940s, her small village had clean water, rich soils, rich forests and plenty of food.

"It was heaven. We wanted for nothing," she said.

"Now the forests have come down, the land has been turned to commercial farming, the tea plantations keep everyone poor, and the economic system does not allow people to appreciate the beauty of where they live."


Maathai was educated by Catholic nuns. (environment‎)

Maathai said: "After my education by the nuns, I emerged as a person who believed that society is inherently good and that people generally act for the best."

Maathai won a scholarship to study in the US, as part of the 'Kennedy airlift' in which 300 Kenyans - including Barack Obama’s father - were chosen to study at American universities in 1960.

After further study in Germany, she returned to a newly independent Kenya in 1966.

Her early work as a vet took her to some of Kenya's poorest areas.

She saw first-hand the damage that was being done to the environment.

In 1977, she set up the Green Belt movement.

She became critical of politicians in Kenya, the World Bank, the IMF, Britain and other former colonial powers.

Before the 1990s, the Mau forest (above) was a protected area. "But then senior officials in President Daniel arap Moi's government grabbed large plots of the highly fertile land for themselves." Website for this image

What began as a few women planting trees became a network of 600 community groups.

They looked after 6,000 tree nurseries, which were often supervised by disabled and mentally ill people in the villages.

By 2004, more than 30 million trees had been planted, and the movement had branches in 30 countries.

In Kenya, the Green Belt movement has become an agricultural advice service, a community regeneration project and a job-creation plan.

In the early 1990s, Maathai set up Mazingira, the Kenyan Green Party.

Maathai became a junior environment minister between January 2003 and November 2005.

She died in September 2011. (Nobel laureate and environment‎alist)

Who to copy on the environment?

There is a dispute about global warming.

But, most people agree about the need to look after the environment.

Too many trees are being cut down, too much air is polluted and too many creatures are dying out.

A new report from the charity Oxfam says the world should copy Scotland in environmental policy.

One of Obama’s top advisers says the world must follow Scotland's lead in environmental policy.

Obama's climate adviser praises Scotland

Professor Diana Liverman, the Oxford scientist and presidential adviser, backs the Oxfam report that singles out Scotland as an example for the rest of the world to follow.

Malcolm Fleming, Oxfam's Scottish campaigns manager, said: "Scotland is already leading the world ... with targets guided by science rather than political expediency."

The Oxfam report states 375m people will likely be affected by climate-related disasters by 2015, and that 200m people may need to migrate each year by 2050 because of hunger, environmental degradation and loss of land.

Scotland is expected to provide around 25% of Europe's ALTERNATIVE energy.

Scotland's SNP government is OPPOSED to nuclear energy.

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Food Price Crisis

Photo by Walter Siegmund

On 15 May 2009, the BBC World Service index of retail food prices showed that basic food prices worldwide have gone up 8% in the last 10 months. (Food prices vary but crisis remains)

The index is based on eight cities, including Washington, Nairobi and Buenos Aires.

In Nairobi, in Kenya, where many people earn only one US dollar a day, there was a rise of almost 50% in the price of food in the last 10 months.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation index shows food prices nearly 50% higher than in 2003. The price of cereals is up 80% since 2003.

ActionAid International predicts that about 17 million people in Kenya are now in danger of starvation.



"Agricultural yields in Africa have... fallen in some cases by up to 50 per cent as a result of invasive pests, land degradation, erosion, drought and climate change, according to the report, released .... by the UN Environment Programme...

"Reversing environmental degradation and 'investing in ... forests, soils and water bodies is one part of the ... solution...The other key is managing them and the food chain in far more efficient ways.'

"Over half of food produced worldwide is lost, wasted or discarded as a result of inefficiency..."

Reform Vital To Avert Looming African Food Crisis



www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/32_7728.htm