L. David Mech "Dave"

Trees can bring peace, or at least democracy

By Nancy jo Tubbs
Reprinted by permission of the Ely Timberjay
December, 2004

Two recent news items collided in my mind, and I keep thinking about them in the context of one another. Item one is global: Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, was honored for, to put it most simply, planting trees.

The second event is local. Various interest groups have filed 14 appeals to the recently announced management plan for what amounts to a whole bunch of trees -- the Superior National Forest. The US Forest Service plan seeks to maintain a healthy three- million-acre forest while designating portions of it for use by us -- loggers, hunters, canoeists, snowmobilers, boaters and conservationists. The Forest Service held public meetings and received 26,900 written comments on its draft plan. The plan was finalized, and in response came the appeals. ATV riders, timber producers, grouse hunters all seek more access. A coalition of environmental groups wants 90,000 acres protected as roadless area.

While I imagine dealing with appeals is no fun for the Forest Service, I’m guessing that Maathai would view the situation as near perfect.

When Maathai was a child in the fertile, forested land of Kenya, her language had no word for desert. Deforestation, unsustainable agricultural practices, population growth and lost water resources turned the land to desert and much of the rural population to poverty. In the meantime, Maathai had become the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate, and her degree was in biology. In talking with rural Kenyan women in the mid-70s, Maathai learned how the erosion of their environment affected them.

Maathai reports, “They said they did not have enough wood for energy or good sources of clean drinking water or enough to eat, especially nutritious foods. I saw that the common thread in all of this was that the environment around them was in decline. Trees were a good solution. Trees could meet women’s immediate needs and also help restore degraded ecosystems. I began to work with the women to grow tree seedlings and plant them on private land. Women were compensated for their seedlings so they got a small income.”

So, she received the Peace Prize for planting trees. More profoundly, she was honored for starting the Green Belt Movement through which poor women have reforested parts of Africa, healing the land, breaking the cycle of poverty and helping bring democracy to Kenya. She held the world-shaking belief that citizens should decide how their precious resources would be allocated.

The former government of Kenya objected to Maathai’s efforts to mobilize women into groups to plant seedlings and to encourage farmers to plant trees on their land. Corrupt government agents had been illegally selling off land and trees to wealthy developers. Agents of President Daniel arap Moi’s government even encouraged ethnic communities into bloody fights over land in the Kenya’s Rift Valley.

“Supporters of the ruling party got the land, while those in the pro-democracy movement were displaced,” Maathai said. “This was one of the government's ways of retaining power; if communities were kept busy fighting over land, they would have less opportunity to demand democracy.”

The Green Belt Movement began to hold seminars on conflict resolution, human rights and leadership. Maathai and her supporters received death threats, were beaten, arrested and held in jail by government authorities. In time, the movement’s peaceful work for a multi-party democracy and free elections in Kenya paid off. In 2002, Kenyans elected their first democratic government.

Says Maathai, “Many local and international wars, like those in West and Central Africa and the Middle East, continue to be fought over resources. In the process, human rights, democracy and democratic space are denied. Unless we properly manage resources like forests, water, land, minerals and oil, we will not win the fight against poverty. And there will not be peace.”

When I ponder last week’s stories about land management out of Kenya and northern Minnesota, I think we in the Superior National Forest are very lucky. We have lots of trees and an abundance of democracy, two elements that Kenyan women have had to fight 30 years to even begin to attain. Yes, the trees are a bone of contention on 14 fronts and the democracy is a bit messy, but that is the way of valuable resources and the human animal.

In celebrating the Nobel Peace Prize Maathai recalled the words of Gandhi, “My life is my message.”

“Also,” she said. “Plant a tree.”