Wangari Maathai

"Una apasionada llamada a la acción para sanar las heridas de nuestro planeta y para sanarnos los seres humanos, a través de los principios de nuestras tradiciones espirituales, de una mujer laureada con el premio Nobel de la Paz. En nuestro mundo moderno es muy fácil sentirse desconectado de la Tierra física. A pesar de las advertencias directas y de la creciente preocupación por el estado de nuestro planeta, muchas personas no están al corriente de lo que ocurre en el mundo natural. Wangari Maathai trabajó durante muchos años con el Movimiento Cinturón Verde para ayudar a las mujeres de la Kenia rural a plantar y mantener millones de árboles. Metiéndose de lleno en la acción con la Tierra, estas mujeres suelen sentirse de pronto fortalecidas y comprometidas con esta situación, de un modo que nunca antes habían experimentado. Y Maathai quiso transmitir ese sentimiento a todo el mundo, puesto que consideraba que la clave se halla en los valores espirituales tradicionales: amor por el entorno, mejora personal, gratitud y respeto, así como compromiso con el servicio. Aunque fue educada en la tradición cristiana, Maathai se sintió inspirada por muchas tradiciones religiosas, y celebró el mandato judío de tikkum olam («repara el mundo»), al mismo tiempo que renovó el término japonés mottainai («no derroches»). Consideraba que, mediante una nueva consagración a estos valores, finalmente podremos sanarnos a nosotros mismos y al planeta."

Born in the foothills of the Aberdare Mountains in Kenya in 1940, Wangari Maathai grew up in a close-knit Kikuyu community where food, fresh water and fuel were plentiful. Her family were farmers and she grew up surrounded by the beauties of an ecologically balanced forest in which trees offered shelter and fuel as well as maintaining the water table and fostering springs and streams and farming local crops such as millet and green vegetables as well as sheep and goats meant that people were well-fed. At that time, however, Kenya was undergoing a massive adjustment as colonialism brought with it European crops and farming methods, missionaries and white settlers. The enviromental balance that the old way of life had ensured was fatally disrupted as the forests were cleared to make way for settler farms and cash crops and a cash economy were introduced. Wangari was sent to a local mission school she continued her studies in the USA in Kansas and Pittsburg as part of the Kennedy airlift. She returned to Nairobi and received a PhD, the first woman in East and Central Africa to do so, and then became head of the veterinary medicine faculty there - the first woman to achieve that too. As her life unfolded Kenya suffered under the profoundly corrupt regime of Daniel arap Moi. Land was given away, natural resources plundered and the fragile ecological balance of many different habitats was destroyed as land that had been historically put to one use was put to another.. Extreme poverty and hunger for very many Kenyans followed, and Wangari, as she visited the areas of her country that she had known as a child, was struck by the absence of trees. She realised that if women planted trees the soil would stay, rain would sink into the earth and replenish the water table, biodiversity would be sustained, there would be material for fuel and fencing and therefore the people living on the land would be better off. Thus began one of the great influences for environmental and social change of our time, the Green Belt Movement. This is an amazing story spanning different worlds and changing times and revealing what the courage, determination, tenacity and humour of one good woman can achieve and how as small a thing as planting a seedling and watering it can made all the difference in the world.

Wangari Maathai, premio Nobel de la Paz en 2004 y actual responsable de medio ambiente y recursos naturales en su Kenia natal, constituye todo un ejemplo de entereza y tesón. En estas íntimas memorias, la activista habla de su humilde familia, sus estudios de biologia en Estados Unidos, su insobornable lucha contra la deforestacion que la llevo a la carcel y, finalmente, el reconocimiento internacional que le ha merecido caminar con la cabeza alta y los pies bien plantados en la tierra de sus antepasados.

Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As humans have driven the living planet to the brink of collapse, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend it. Their words have endured, becoming the classics that define the environmental movement today.From the Congo Basin to the traditions of the Kikuyu people, these lucid, incisive writings explore the sacred power of trees, and why humans lay waste to the forests that keep us alive.

En 1977, estremecida por la devastación medioambiental provocada por la deforestación en su querida Kenya, Wangari Maathai (Premio Nobel de la Paz, 2004) fundó el Movimiento Cinturón Verde, que ha permitido a mucha gente, sobre todo mujeres, plantar arboles en sus regiones, proporcionandoles de esta forma comida y madera, y frenando tambien la erosion del suelo y la desertificacion. No obstante, el Movimiento se convirtio en algo mas que eso: se convirtio en un movimiento por la democracia representativa que, en el plazo de una generacion, consiguio que se celebraran las primeras elecciones democraticas en Kenya, en las que Maathai fue elegida al Parlamento y nombrada ministra asistente de Medio Ambiente. Revela la lucha y la estructura de este extraordinario esfuerzo realizado para la reforestacion de una vasta region y para liberar a su gente.

In this urgent yet optimistic new work, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai provides a unique perspective on the fate of Africa. Informed by her three decades as an environmental activist and campaigner for democracy, The Challenge for Africa celebrates the enduring potential of the human spirit, and reminds us that change is always possible.

An impassioned call to heal the wounds of our planet and ourselves through the tenets of our spiritual traditions, from a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize It is so easy, in our modern world, to feel disconnected from the physical earth. Despite dire warnings and escalating concern over the state of our planet, many people feel out of touch with the natural world. Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has spent decades working with the Green Belt Movement to help women in rural Kenya plantand sustainmillions of trees. With their hands in the dirt, these women often find themselves empowered and at home in a way they never did before. Maathai wants to impart that feeling to everyone, and believes that the key lies in traditional spiritual values: love for the environment, self-betterment, gratitude and respect, and a commitment to service. While educated in the Christian tradition, Maathai draws inspiration from many faiths, celebrating the Jewish mandate tikkun olam (repair the world) and renewing the Japanese term mottainai (dont waste). Through rededication to these values, she believes, we might finally bring about healing for ourselves and the earth.

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.From the Congo Basin to the traditions of the Kikuyu people, the lucid, incisive writings in The World We Once Lived In explore the sacred power of trees, and why humans lay waste to the forests that keep us alive.Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.