Today we celebrate Africa Environment and Wangari Maathai Day: a treasured ancestor who understood, deeply, the connection between social and ecological justice.
Wangari Maathai
Professor Wangari Muta Maathai, fondly known as “Prof”, was a friend, mentor and courageous activist whose understanding of biocultural diversity flows through Gaia’s work to this day, almost fourteen years after her passing. An advocate for Earth Jurisprudence, we stand on her shoulders as our efforts in this field continue, through the Earth Jurisprudence trainings held by Gaia and our allies, Siama, as well as the community of practice formed from graduates and facilitators: the African Earth Jurisprudence Collective.
Born in 1940 in Nyeri, Kenya, Wangari was the first woman in East and Central Africa to receive a PhD. In 2004, she went on to become the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, twenty years after receiving the Right Livelihood Award in 1984; an international honour often touted as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, shared by many of Gaia’s international associates and ancestors.
We first met Wangari in 1985, when her organisation, the Green Belt Movement, was forming its roots in Kenya. Motivated by environmental conservation and women’s rights, Wangari had been tirelessly opposing worsening deforestation, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, and water shortages for years. Her vision for The Green Belt Movement was to reclothe Mother Earth in her green cloth: by empowering women in communities to plant trees in critical watersheds, together they could improve soil fertility and essential water sources while reweaving lost connections between people and the living world on whom we depend for our own lives. Wangari’s noble resistance to large government projects demanding wide-scale deforestation was violently opposed and later led to her imprisonment. Upon her release, Gaia provided the Green Belt Movement with its first fax machine: a vital tool for international communications back in those days!
In the years that followed, Wangari’s dedication to ecological and social justice became widely recognised. The Green Belt Movement supported women across Kenya to plant millions of trees, improving food security, resilience, and inter-species connections.
She advocated for restoring biocultural diversity, recognising the intrinsic link between pockets of rich culture and the thriving wildlife that surrounded them. She also recognised that communities were more inclined to protect natural sites when they held cultural significance.
“Culture is intimately linked with environmental conservation. Communities that haven’t yet undergone industrialisation often retain a close, reverential connection with nature…[Through colonisation] the awe and sense of place that allowed communities to recognise, however unconsciously, that in order to safeguard their livelihoods, they needed to protect [ecosystems], were gone.”
Throughout her life, Wangari authored several books, including “Replenishing the Earth”, and her work continues to inspire countless individuals and organisations worldwide to defend ecological and social justice. She is remembered for her belief that “culture is coded wisdom” accumulated over generations and her assurance that this was the “missing link” in many conversations around conservation.
Many years back, Wangari spent time with Gaia and the ‘father of Earth Jurisprudence’, Thomas Berry, and remains an inspiration for all emerging Earth Jurisprudence Practitioners. Together with another beloved ancestor, the Kenyan lawyer Ng’ang’a Thiongo, she worked tirelessly to include Earth Jurisprudence principles in the Kenyan constitution as it was being reformed in the early 2000s, and gave her support in the early years of evolving this approach to revive our traditional and Earth-centred ways of living and being in this world.
Tharaka, Kenya. Photograph by Andy Pilsbury.
Since Wangari’s passing into the ancestral realm in 2011, her legacy has remained strong. The Green Belt Movement lives on. As does the work of her daughter, Wanjira Matthai, one of Gaia’s international allies. The African Earth Jurisprudence Collective is ever evolving in Wangari’s honour: in Tharaka, Kenya, communities are recalling the clan governance system that protects sacred sites along the Kithino River; in Zimbabwe, farmers in Bikita are reviving indigenous varieties of their most resilient and sacred crop, millet; in Benin, villagers are restoring the sacred forests that play a vital role in Vodun culture.
Today, we reflect on this legacy, ever grateful for Prof’s gutsy wisdom, generously shared with a great sense of humour, through our lasting friendship.