Quotes from Wangari Maathai

Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.

There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.

As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service

That's the way I do things when I want to celebrate, I always plant a tree. And so I got an indigenous tree, called Nandi flame, it has this beautiful red flowers. When it is in flower it is like it is in flame.

When I first started, it was really an innocent response to the needs of women in rural areas. When we started planting trees to meet their needs, there was nothing beyond that. I did not see all the issues that I have to come to deal with.

The living conditions of the poor must be improved if we really want to save our environment

That's the way I do things when I want to celebrate, I always plant a tree.

Once people see that you improve you life if you are educated, then education becomes a valuable tool and people want it.

But when you have bad governance, of course, these resources are destroyed: The forests are deforested, there is illegal logging, there is soil erosion. I got pulled deeper and deeper and saw how these issues become linked to governance, to corruption, to dictatorship.

And so I'm saying that, yes, colonialism was terrible, and I describe it as a legacy of wars, but we ought to be moving away from that by now.

Culture is coded wisdom

African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.

It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.

It was easy for me to be ridiculed and for both men and women to perceive that maybe I'm a bit crazy because I'm educated in the West and I have lost some of my basic decency as an African woman.

Women are responsible for their children, they cannot sit back, waste time and see them starve.

It is important to nurture any new ideas and initiatives which can make a difference for Africa.

The issue of carbon is one area where we really need to work together and if people don't have the technology they need, that technology needs to be made available and affordable.

First of all, farmers should work with universities and research institutions in the country, and hopefully with the government.

All through the ages the African people have made efforts to deliver themselves from oppressive forces.

No matter who or where we are, or what our capabilities, we are called to do the best we can.

In Kenya women are the first victims of environmental degradation, because they are the ones who walk for hours looking for water, who fetch firewood, who provide food for their families.

I'm sure that many people who are involved in an environmental effort ... they will be pretty much encouraged by this recognition.

The generation that destroys the environment is not the generation that pays the price. That is the problem.

The people are starving. They need food; they need medicine; they need education. They do not need a skyscraper to house the ruling party and a 24-hour TV station.