When I took over as Chief of the Education Sector of UNEP in 1986,my predecessor, Pr. Edward Rugumayo, included in his briefing of Who’s Who the name of a young Kenyan lecturer who he said was at our doorstep (i.e. in Nairobi itself) and doing a tremendous job creating green belts around villages. Her name was Wangari. So I contacted her and we eventually traveled to Kikuyu, upcountry from Nairobi, to visit some of her Green Belts. The idea was simple but the results fantastic.

Instead of depleting distant forests for fuel-wood or timber, each village had created a green belt of trees for itself, cared for by the villagers themselves. This provided fuel-wood and poles at their own doorstep. The only rule was that, if you need a tree and cut one, you had to plant another and care for it. These villagers were practising sustainable development long before the Rio Conference of 1992. The effect was beneficial to people, to the environment and – I can see that now – to peaceful leaving as it helped to avoid conflicts over forests.

I asked Wangari there and then whether she would be prepared to travel to neighbouring countries to introduce green belts. She was enthusiastic about it and so, under a modest UN contract, travelled to Tanzania, Uganda and other states to introduce this green belt idea. Incidentally, this is typical of a form of UN action termed the “multiplier effect”: a good idea which works in one place is adapted to many other similar contexts.

Over the years I followed Wangari’s career and her fight to preserve the ecosystems and wildlife of Kenya. She often put her job (as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi) at risk. Once the Moi Government had her imprisoned for one day: enough for the rules about women prisoners to be applied – her head was shaven. The next day she donned the traditional Kikuyi head-scarf and continued the fight! When she divorced her husband, in the eighties, he is reported to have said: “She is too educated, too strong, too stubborn and too hard to control.” A minus point for men.

Bravo Wangari! Your Nobel Prize for Peace is actually a green one, re-enforcing the concept that a stable resource-base (of food, land, shelter, water etc.) is essential for local, regional and world peace.

Yours is a shining example – for Africa and the rest of the world - of what a woman with a cause can achieve.

<B>Michael ATCHIA</B>