Opinion: The Planting of Ideas
By Carolyn Mugar and Jeff Masarjian
Boston Globe
October 24, 2006
"THE PLANTING of trees is the planting of ideas," says Dr. Wangari Maathai,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and environmentalist. But what does she mean?
Hosted by Boston’s Urban Forest Coalition, she will address this question at
Faneuil Hall today.
In a world faced with such weighty problems as global warming, dwindling
fossil fuels, and the gap between rich and poor nations — the planting of
trees may seem of little importance. Yet, as the founder of the Green Belt
Movement, Maathai has taught us that tree planting is a critical step toward
helping to protect the environment and fight poverty.
A Kenyan, Maathai has dedicated herself to fighting two of her country’s
starkest problems: poverty and deforestation. With less than 2 percent
forest coverage, Kenya is well below the UN recommended minimum of 10
percent. Maathai’s movement has held fast against these daunting challenges,
forging an ingenious path forward — one that simultaneously addresses both
crises. It is an approach built upon education and direct engagement with
local communities.
Led by Maathai, the Green Belt Movement organizes poor rural women in Kenya
to plant trees. Each new tree yields multiple benefits in their lives —
reversing the tide of deforestation, restoring Kenyan’s main source of
cooking fuel, and strengthening the community.
The Green Belt Movement has incorporated education on women’s rights into
its environmental programs, empowering disenfranchised Kenyans to fight for
a sustainable and viable economic future. All these actions make clear what
Mathaai means by comparing the planting of trees with the planting of ideas.
And she is not alone in that view. All around the world, NGOs and other
concerned parties are taking comparable steps to protect the environment and
combat poverty. In Armenia today, estimated forest cover is less than 8
percent; a dramatic decrease from a healthy 25 percent at the turn of the
last century. Moreover, its environment, one of the world’s most
ecologically diverse with seven different climate zones, is in grave
jeopardy.
Currently, due to lack of alternative energy sources, the 40 percent of
Armenians living below the poverty line are overreliant on wood for fuel. If
the trend of poverty-driven deforestation continues, much of Armenia will
become a desert in just 20 years. Like Kenya, deforestation threatens to rob
Armenia of its natural beauty and resources.
That’s why, similar to the Green Belt Movement’s efforts, an organization
called the Armenia Tree Project offers public education programs. We
recently developed a new interactive environmental curriculum, "Plant an
Idea, Plant a Tree," which offers instruction on how the health of Armenia’s
ecosystem is closely tied to its economic future. We have introduced this
curriculum in all 1,400 of Armenia’s public schools. In rural villages, our
staff trains and works with subsistence farmers on planting and forestation
techniques. At our large-scale nursery and environmental educational center,
we instruct college students and professionals on environmental stewardship.
In our 12 years, Armenia Tree Project has made enormous strides, planting
and restoring more than 1,250,000 trees and creating hundreds of jobs in our
backyard nursery micro-enterprises for Armenia’s rural poor.
In the 30 years of the Green Belt Movement’s existence, an astonishing 30
million trees have been planted and 30,000 Kenyan women trained in forestry,
food processing, bee keeping, and other trades. Their example inspires our
work.
Such accomplishments suggest that in a world overwhelmed by seemingly large
and unsolvable issues, the long-term solutions may well lie in simple but
practical actions, taken on the local level.
Carolyn Mugar is the founder and Jeff Masarjian the executive director of
Armenia Tree Project.
© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company