|
|
|
|
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai Calls For A Greener TomorrowDecember 2004 OSLO (AFP) - Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, who received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, said protecting the environment was vital to promote peace and democracy. "There can be no peace without equitable development and there can be no development without sustainable management of the environment in a democratic and peaceful space. This shift is an idea whose time has come," said Maathai, who is the first environmentalist to receive the prestigious prize. "Industry and global institutions must appreciate that ensuring economic justice, equity and ecological integrity are of greater value than profits at any cost," she added in her acceptance speech. Kenya's assistant minister for the environment since 2003, Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement -- a campaign to save Africa's forests that began with nine trees in her yard nearly three decades ago, and which has grown into the largest tree planting project in Africa with more than 30 million trees planted across the continent. Dressed in orange with a matching headband, Maathai, 64, accepted the award in the brightly decorated Oslo City Hall, decked with red and purple flowers, from the chairman of the Nobel Committee Ole Mjoes, and in the presence of Norway's King Harald. During a colorful ceremony at which African dancers in grass skirts swayed to the beat of tom-tom drums, Maathai received a check for the 10 million Swedish kronor (1.1 million euro, 1.4 million dollar) prize sum, as well as a Nobel diploma and gold medal. The Nobel Committee's decision to award her the coveted prize reflects a new view on peace activism and the extraordinary emergence of environmentalism from the wings to the centre stage of politics. "Environmental protection has become yet another path to peace," Mjoes said. "There are connections between peace on the one hand and an environment on the other in which scarce resources such as oil, water, minerals and timber are quarrelled over," he added, evoking the Arab-Israeli battle over water and the Darfur conflict in Sudan, which he said had largely been provoked by deforestation and desertification in the region. "When the environment is destroyed, plundered or mismanaged, we undermine our quality of life and that of future generations," agreed Maathai, the 12th woman and the first African woman to win the Peace Prize. "Widespread destruction of ecosystems, especially through deforestation, climatic instability, and contamination in the soils and waters... all contribute to excruciating poverty," she added. Maathai, who was the first Kenyan woman ever to win a doctorate degree and the first female professor at the University of Nairobi, also warned that the dilution of traditional culture around the world and especially in Africa was a threat to environmental conservation. "With the destruction of these cultures and the introduction of new values, local biodiversity is no longer valued or protected and as a result, it is quickly degraded and disappears," she said. Recalling the beauty of the rural Kenya of her childhood, before she witnessed "forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations," Maathai insisted on the importance of giving "back to the children a world of beauty and wonder." "Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system," Maathai said. While some critics have raised questions about the Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to an environmentalist, the choice of Maathai has been seen as uncontroversial compared to past laureates, who include the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger. Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041210/sc_afp/nobelpeace_041210183857 |