Worrying times as grabbers are out to dismantle Wangari Maathai’s legacy

Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Prof Wangari Maathai. Prof Maathai was a pioneer in the world on the link between nature, the environment, public interest and peace. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

In Summary

• Prof Maathai was a pioneer in the world on the link between nature, the environment, public interest and peace.
• In short, she taught us that the environment, wildlife, and nature were in our public interest, and that we were all adversely affected by their continued destruction.
• We clearly have not learnt the lessons from China, where environmental degradation has become so bad in many of the cities, that disaster warnings are put in place because of the polluted air and smog.

By MAINA KIAI
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In December 2004, the late Professor Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The award came not from Prof Maathai engaging in traditional peace-making endeavours — such as stopping wars and conflict — but from a lifetime of working on environmental protection, preservation of nature and promoting women’s rights.

Prof Maathai was a pioneer in the world on the link between nature, the environment, public interest and peace.

With determination and courage, Wangari taught us that trees and forest cover were essential to our climate and weather patterns.

She taught us that we need to let rivers flow as nature intended or our quality of life was threatened.

And she taught us that trees, nature, and wildlife were indispensable to not just the quality of air, but to our culture.

In short, she taught us that the environment, wildlife, and nature were in our public interest, and that we were all adversely affected by their continued destruction.

Indeed but for her, Uhuru Park and Karura forest would be concrete jungles.

Sadly, barely four years after her death, the lessons she taught us seem to be fading, and fast.

In the last two years, we have seen the return of land grabbing.

We have seen efforts to grab primary school playing grounds in Nairobi, only averted due to public anger, and amidst confusing statements as to the ownership of Weston Hotel, which was behind the attempted land grab.

A BLEAK FUTURE

We have also seen riverine areas in Nairobi in the hands of developers who seem to work at night seeing how fast some of these buildings come up.

Most of these developments ripened after 2013, and I doubt that these developers would have had the guts to build were Wangari alive.

It also seems that the coming to power of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr William Ruto appears to have re-opened the floodgates of land-grabbing.

Is that because both of them come from political and personal heritages associated with the land grabbing eras of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi respectively?

And now there is Phase 2 of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) that is earmarked to cut-through, and hive off, the Nairobi National Park — often referred to as “Nairobi’s lungs” due to its contribution to the air quality in Nairobi.

A part of the Park has already been hived off for the Southern Bypass and Phase 1 of the SGR.

Some believe that development, including of infrastructure, should not be impeded by things like national parks and nature.

It has even been suggested that conservation, environment and protecting nature is not as important as having a railway line even if it means destroying the only National Park in any capital city in the world.

But this is an incredibly short-sighted view.

And no, it is not a “mzungu” thing to care about nature and environment as Wangari Maathai so wonderfully showed us.

We clearly have not learnt the lessons from China, where environmental degradation has become so bad in many of the cities, that disaster warnings are put in place because of the polluted air and smog.

It has become so bad that wealthy Chinese are known to go on “fresh air” safaris to Japan, and import fresh Rocky Mountains air from Canada.