ABSTRACT
Globalization has given rise to new forms of social movements in which groups and individuals have emphasized the advantages that could accrue to states and individuals. Others have denounced globalization as tool for creating poverty among the less-developed societies. The transformations engendered by globalization have broad gender and environmental implications. Thus, concerted effort is being made by grass root social movements embedded in communities and networks to raise consciousness about the gender as well as environmental effects of globalization. These movements have often set themselves against powerful interests including the state. This chapter explores Wangari Maathai’s decades long advocacy for global and local environmental conservation, rehabilitation, and gender development. Maathai’s work also links issues of food production, poor women’s livelihoods, renewable sources of energy, poverty alleviation, reduction of women’s workloads, health, hygiene, nutrition, and housing to the general well-being of poor people, especially women. For Maathai, these issues have become more urgent in a rapidly globalizing political economy that has drawn developing economies closer to the Western capitalist societies. Maathai associates many aspects of women’s statuses to their access to natural resources that are crucial for their daily survival. Concerned that the world’s rain forests will vanish within 100 years, she brings an urgent message to the world about strategies to control the rate of deforestation. As a women’s advocate, she sometimes came into conflict with the top political élite in Kenya who were unwilling to make concrete progress in women’s advancement. In 2004, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Maathai the Nobel Peace Prize, the accompanying citation noted that she “has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development. Maathai combines science, social commitment, and active politics. More than simply protecting the existing environment, her strategy is to secure and strengthen the very basis for ecologically sustainable development.”1 Presently as a member of the Kenyan Parliament and government, she is making transformative policy for environmental development to benefit women, the poor,
and future generations. Since 2004 when Maathai received the Nobel, and three years later in the fall of 2007 with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore also being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his environmental workincluding his internationally acclaimed documentary, An Inconvenient Truth-environmentalists are experiencing a renewed validity and vitality for their cause. While both Maathai and Gore contributed globally to the heightened consciousness for the care of the earth, Maathai brought special focus to the drought-stricken parts of Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia. The countries of the Horn of Africa have also been major conflict zones that have suffered severe famine, causing the deaths and displacement of millions of people. Vast numbers of refugees have poured into Kenya, giving special significance to Maathai’s environmental work.2 Her work has also given concrete expression to the discourse on gender and environmental issues, and she joins the ranks of those who have put into practice grass roots participatory projects through which poor people have been motivated to sustain the integrity of their local environments.3
