Wangari Beckons the West to Save the Congo Basin

By Symon G. Ogeto
Posted on Monday, June 27, 2005

Prof. Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Laureate Kenyan MP and an assistant minister in the Kibaki government/Photo By SGO

Chicago, IL –The 2004 Nobel Peace prizewinner Professor Wangari Maathai has taken on another crusade to save the environment a notch higher than the 30 million trees she and her Green Belt Movement have planted throughout Kenya since mid 1970s. She wants the world to attend to the Congo Basin, one of the world’s largest forests and only second to the Amazon.

The laureate, who also serves as an assistant minister for environment and natural resources in the Kenyan government, emphasized the need for members of the eight most industrialized nations, famously known as G8, meeting next month in Dublin, Ireland, to seriously discuss the Congo Basin which is facing rapid degradation especially from logging.

Speaking Wednesday to members of the 100-year-old Rotary International 2005 Convention meeting in Chicago, IL, Maathai delivered the keynote speech saying, “The basic needs of people are not just water, food, shelter, and education, but include justice and equality.”

In 2003, the US House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Africa held hearings on the plans, partnerships and stakes in saving the Congo Basin. Several ambassadors from the nine nations that share the Basin presented to the subcommittee.

The Congo Basin Forest Partnership that was launched by then Secretary of State – Colin Powell in 2002, preceded this hearing. The aim of the partnership was to support a network of parks and protected areas and well-managed forestry concessions.

According to Environmental News Network, one of the largest, most recognized online environmental news source, there is 14.6 million hectares (56,000 square miles) of forests lost from the world each year to deforestation. This loss is attributed to irresponsible forest management, enhanced by poor governmental regulations and enforcement and markets that reward illegal logging.

Maathai used the metaphor of a traditional African three-legged stool to drive her point home said that any stable government needs three pillars, which include: the environment, democracy and peace.

On Tuesday, Maathai spoke to about 200 people, including a dozen Chicago-based Kenyans at the Sheil Catholic Center in Evanston, IL. In her remarks, Maathai outlined her journey from growing up in Kenya to the United States and back to Kenya up-to her winning of Nobel Peace Prize last year.

“I was very pleasantly surprised the she was eloquent and there was a great deal of substance [in everything she said]” said Donald Owino, a Chicago-based Kenyan entrepreneur. This was the first time Owino met Maathai even thought he had read a lot about her work and heard more of her political contribution at the Kenya’s national parliament sessions.