Think Globally, Act Locally

Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She was also the first female scholar from East and Central Africa to take a doctorate (in biology), and the first female professor ever in her home country of Kenya. Maathai played an (26) _______ part in the (27) _______ for democracy in Kenya.

As a young girl in Kenya, she was surrounded by a rich, beautiful forest. As she saw the forest being cut down, she understood how the lack of forests (28) _______ farming and life more difficult for her (29) ______ . People fought over water and over food. She decided to plant nine seedlings and as the trees grew, she had her plans to plant trees for (30) _____ .

In 1977, she (31) ______ a movement aimed at opposing the deforestation that was threatening the means of subsistence of the agricultural population. The campaign (32) _______ women to plant trees in their local environments and to think ecologically. The so- called Green Belt Movement spread to other African countries, and (33) ______ to the planting of over thirty million trees.

Maathai’s Green Belt Movement for African women was not limited in its vision to work (34) _______ sustainable development, she saw tree – planting in a broader perspective which included democracy, (35) _______, international solidarity, as in the words of the Noel Committee “She thinks globally and acts locally.”