VZCZCXRO5454
RR RUEHGI RUEHRN
DE RUEHNR #3209/01 2210601
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 090601Z AUG 07
FM AMEMBASSY NAIROBI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1598
INFO RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NAIROBI 003209 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/E 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: SENV ENRG KGHG ECON PGOV KCOR KE
SUBJECT: KENYA'S WANGARI MAATHAI CONTINUES TO SPEAK OUT 
 
¶1.  Summary: Kenya's Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, 
recipient of the 2007 Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human 
Rights, continues to be a forceful advocate for better governance as 
a path to environmentally sustainable economic development in Kenya 
and across Africa.  Her ability to influence policy and practice on 
the ground, however, is limited at times by the short-sighted nature 
of Kenyan politics.  Maathai is continually finding new avenues to 
advance an agenda shared by the United States. Even if she loses her 
Parliamentary seat in the December election, Maathai will remain an 
influential voice for conservation.  End summary. 
 
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Passion for Tree Planting 
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¶2.  In a July 26 meeting with Econoff, Prof. Wangari Maathai, who is 
also an elected Member of Parliament (MP), spoke passionately about 
a range of environmental concerns, but primarily focused on 
tree-planting and reclaiming environmentally degraded areas. 
Maathai said that local communities needed responsible leadership 
and improved educational outreach to fully understand the importance 
of sustainable management of resources.  Lamenting the uncontrolled 
development of Nairobi's river catchment areas, she said her Green 
Belt Movement (GBM) is "ready to do battle" to protect the 
watersheds.  She recently challenged African nations to "ring the 
bell" and confront the threat of global climate change.  She 
challenged community development projects that do not consider 
environmental ramifications such as road building, and supported 
community-based reclamation of degraded forests in western Kenya. 
 
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Education and Involvement at Ground Level 
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¶3.  According to Prof. Maathai, education is needed to build 
farm-level awareness and understanding of environmental concerns 
such as deforestation and desertification.  Information does not 
reach enough people because it is often disseminated in English or 
Kiswahili, rather than in local languages more farmers understand. 
Many subsistence farmers are poor people who are not thinking about 
tomorrow, but are just trying to meet the needs of today.  Maathai 
believes that by increasing their awareness of environmental 
degradation, they will become involved in the solutions. 
 
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Planting, Prayers, Promise 
-------------------------- 
 
¶4.  Under the Plant a Billion Tree Campaign initiated by the GBM and 
the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), GBM 
pledged to plant two million trees in Kenya.  Maathai also advocates 
planting a green belt of trees across the Sahara Desert from Dakar 
to Djibouti to combat global climate change and desertification, and 
to contribute to soil stabilization and watershed management. 
 
¶5.  Closer to home, Maathai passionately addressed some of the 
environmental challenges in development and building in riverine 
areas of Nairobi, and the loss of parks and green space in the city. 
 She became very zealous when describing sites in Nairobi where 
building and development along the riverbed is exposing the bright 
red soil to erosion, damaging water quality.  Her GBM has placed 
signs near these grim sites, imploring people to stop grabbing and 
degrading public lands.  She is amazed that people continue to do so 
in the shadow of these signs, attributing this to greed and 
corruption. She left the interview with EconOff to meet with the 
Mayor of Nairobi and let him know that "we are ready for battle" 
over some of the sites.  She explained that GBM is planning to have 
a planting event of hope and promise, beginning with prayers and 
then planting trees to reclaim recently disturbed river catchment 
regions in Nairobi, inviting Econoff to participate in planting. 
 
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Good Governance 
--------------- 
 
¶6.  Prof. Maathai commented that good governance is essential to 
environmental health, and good management of resources contributes 
to peace.  She explained that sometimes greed gets the better of 
people, giving the example that corruption allows building in 
riverbeds.  Prof. Maathai also cited the example of the public works 
department sometimes clear-cutting all vegetation along roads to 
remove obstructions to vision that can cause accidents, which also 
accelerates erosion.  Prof. Maathai was quoted in a local press 
report saying, "We need to protect our water catchments by planting 
more trees. If we destroy the environment, we will have no food." 
Maathai's views sometimes mobilize local communities to action. 
Residents of Nakuru in western Kenya are protesting the felling of 
over 1,000 trees in a road improvement project, according to a local 
press report. 
 
¶7.   Prof. Maathai promotes good governance and community 
 
NAIROBI 00003209  002 OF 002 
 
 
involvement as keys to effective and sustainable economic 
development, a key area the Mission supports.  The popularity of a 
music festival last week highlighting conservation topics such as 
desertification and deforestation exemplifies the grassroots support 
for Prof. Maathai's work and interest in a better environment. 
 
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The Food Security Conundrum 
--------------------------- 
 
¶8. Prof. Maathai is embarrassed when Kenyans need food aid, adding 
that population growth is not so much the issue as the capacity to 
manage it.  She believes that Kenya could feed itself on a 
sustainable basis if farmers were trained to move from subsistence 
to sustainable, technology based-farming systems and cultivated 
unplanted land outside environmentally sensitive areas. 
 
¶9. Prof. Maathai acknowledges that biotechnology could increase 
agricultural production and food supplies.  However, in the context 
of the Parliament's discussion of the Biosafety Bill to regulate the 
use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), she highlighted the 
moral and ethical responsibility of government and scientists to 
regulate biotechnology. "We can do damage to ourselves if we are not 
careful.  We have a moral obligation to not put people in danger. 
People trust the government and scientists; they have a moral 
responsibility to protect the people." 
 
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Global Vision Can Conflict With Local Needs 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶10. Prof. Maathai appears regularly in the local news and speaks 
publicly on a variety of environmental topics. She recently 
criticized African countries for not responding to climate change, 
challenging them to take action to mitigate the likely significant 
impacts of climate change in Africa.  On the other hand, Maathai's 
global perspective is often at odds with her constituents, who are 
more concerned about personal issues such as paying their children's 
school fees and basic survival. 
 
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Comment 
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¶11.  Professor Maathai's influence over the Kenyan government is 
limited by her decision to decline President Kibaki's appointment to 
be the Assistant Minister for Environment, and by the general 
short-sightedness of Kenya's politicians at the national and local 
levels.  However, even if she loses her seat in Parliament in 
elections scheduled for later this year, she will remain an 
influential voice for conservation in Kenya and indeed around the 
world. 
RANNEBERGER