We came here in Copenhagen, the last time we were here I said it was in 2009 and there
was a big storm of ice and snow and then we came back again I think it was last Saturday
and there was a big storm so we seem to come to Copenhagen with a stop let me share a little
bit about the Greenbelt movement as an organization and as a program the Greenbelt movement was
actually inspired by the very first conference many of you will be too young to remember
but the very first conference, the United Nations Conference on Women was in 1975 in
Mexico and at that time there was a global movement of women organizing and women met
for the very first time after the auspices of the United Nations in Mexico and they declared
the very first women decade, 1975, 1985. In 1985 they came to Nairobi and they declared
another decade, 1985 to 1995 in Beijing. When they got to Beijing they decided two decades
were enough they were going to declare another decade but I mentioned that pattern to show
that this movement was actually born out of the enthusiasm of women's movement in the
70s and 80s and the fact that women were really trying to get engaged. So as the National
Council Women of Kenya we were part of the global movement and we were asking ourselves
what would be our agenda in Mexico. Many of us did not go to Mexico but at least we decided
that we can do something to meet the third needs of women at that time and at that time
the third needs of women was water, food, nutritious food, domestic energy and income.
I mentioned those and I like to mention them because one of the challenges of development
is that three decades later we are still talking clean drinking water to communities, we are
still talking about good nutritious foods for communities, we are still talking about
the need to improve income and we are still talking about the fact that we need to provide
alternative sources of energy at domestic level so that many of our people in the regions
can stop using shako which is partly destroying the very environment we are trying to protect.
So in many ways what we started three decades ago is still an agenda and in many ways it
has become a global agenda and the challenges that we did not have in the 70s such as global
warming are now in the forefront. They needed to stop deforestation and at that time we
are isolated, those of us who are talking about the need to protect forests. Now everybody
is talking about the need to protect forests, to stop forest degradation and deforestation
and also to stop soil erosion, to harvest rain water, to protect the watershed areas
so that we can have enough clean drinking water. I am sure, I am not saying it for the first
time, I am sure you have heard it, that one of the major challenges that we face although
it does not sometimes come as upfront as global warming, it is clean drinking water. And more
and more, especially countries that are threatened with global warming are becoming so water
scarce that that would be the battle front, that is the source of conflict in the future
even at the community level. So in 1975 when we decided to do something about the third
needs of the women at that time, we focused on those four things and we decided to plant
trees. The tree was a single, but it was also a very interesting single, it was a very lucky
single. We picked it out of just planting trees because we needed the trees, but it
turned out to be an excellent single. It is a symbol of hope because when you plant a
tree it grows, it is a symbol of comfort, it is a symbol of tomorrow because it gives
you hope, it gives you food, it gives you shelter, it shelter also other forms of life.
So when we started, we said let us plant trees on our land, that is what that woman was saying,
I am doing this to plant trees on my land and I was telling them, you are being told
that you are planting trees for me, you are planting trees for yourself. So the exercise
of establishing tree nurseries started very, very simply by bringing a few groups of women
together and teaching them the basics of looking for seeds, establishing tree nurseries, nurturing
those seedlings and planting the trees on their own farms. Once they planted them on
their own farms, if they made them survive, we gave them a small token of appreciation
and financial, and this is where some of the money eventually that we raise to this day
goes. It continues to be a carrot to attract those who want to participate, but with the
education, it has surpassed, so that it is no longer a carrot that makes people want
to work, you have to transform people so that they move away from the carrot to doing things
that they believe in, and that's where the education comes in. Now 1975 to today, it's
a long time a lot of water has gone under the bridge, and what I wanted to share with
you this afternoon are some of the current ideas that we now have on the table that are
very much embedded in the original spirit and the original vision and of course the experience
of those years, and it is the idea of being change agents. I'm quite sure everyone of
us here has some kind of influence. We can all become change agents. We were trying to
make these women change agents to very large extent, they became change agents in their
communities, and they did indeed transform their landscapes. They also became change agents
in promoting democratic space, so that eventually with the help of others for a very long time,
almost two decades, we were eventually able to reintroduce democracy in Kenya. At least
we can say greater democratic space in Kenya. Much more today than I would have thought,
we would have succeeded. So in many ways the Greenbelt movement has been a change agent,
and what we are discussing today with the University of Copenhagen and the University
of Nairobi is the possibility that we can take this experience of being change agents
and taking it to the University. In many ways the only way I could have done what I did is
because I come from the University. I was teaching at the University of Nairobi, and
so I have the experience, I have the knowledge, but I actually felt, although it was partly
by accident, that a lot of the knowledge that we have, and especially now part of the world,
is confined to the walls of the University. It is confined to the minds of the professors
and the students. The minute they hit the street, they are completely disconnected
with the society in which they live. So we are able to have hundreds and hundreds of
degrees of agriculture in the streets, and people are starving to death because they
are not able to produce enough food. So you want to say, what are those degrees doing?
Why can't those degrees in the University become extension workers and come and work
with these women who are working in the land so that they can produce food if they are
even more knowledge, more tools, more information? Why can't we, those of us who have knowledge,
become changes? And I know that all of us can be changes, and I want to give you a few
examples of how we have been trying to promote this concept of changes. When we came here
in Copenhagen in 2009, as you know, forests were part of the big debate, and we were,
of course, very happy because the whole concept of red reduced emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation was taking shape, and we know that it even took a better shape in
the Cancun, and although it has its own problems, we know that protecting forest is extremely
important as far as climate change is concerned. Those of you who follow that debate know that
scientists tell us that at least 20% of all the greenhouse emissions come from forest
degradation and deforestation, and that that amount of greenhouse gas emissions is greater
than the emissions coming from the transport industry put together. I find that difficult
to believe, but that's what scientists tell us. It's enormous, and therefore with the
20% under threat, unless we do something about protecting forests, we are not going to meet
the demand for emission reduction of greenhouse gases or reduction of the degrees. We said
here two degrees, some people wanted more than that, but unless we handle deforestation
and forest degradation, we are not going to make it. And this is very, very important,
especially because all of us take trees and forests for granted, because they're everywhere.
We see them everywhere. In Copenhagen, everywhere you look, you see trees. You go into the
countryside, you see trees. So we think they are inexhaustible, but the truth of the matter
is they are disappearing at a rate that will undermine everything else we are trying to
do with respect to climate change. So I have made it my business to raise awareness about
forests, and I talk about them whenever I go and whatever I can do to persuade people
to convince their governments to please support the efforts to protect forests. And I'm very
happy that one of the initiatives that the University of Copenhagen and the University
of Nairobi and now the Vagre Madai Institute will be working on shortly, will be to try
to protect some of the watershed areas in Kenya, such as the Mount Forest. Those of you
who are familiar with the Kenya, the Mount Forest is an extremely important forest complex
in East Africa, but its impact is felt in the Mediterranean Sea. How many of the rivers
that flow from the Mount Forest flow into the Lake Victoria, and the Lake Victoria you know
is the source of the Nile. So the Egyptians are constantly looking over to see how much
water is coming into the lake and whether that is affecting the flow of the Nile. And they
get very, very worried, in fact they get extremely worried when they read about the destruction
of the Mount. So there is a lot of interest in many, many people to try to save the Mount
Forest. Another very important part of the forest is that many of you who may have been
to Kenya or read about Kenya know about Lake Nakuru and the Flamingos. The lake where the
Flamingos are is fed by waters from the Mount. Lake Natron in Tanzania is where the Flamingos
breathe. The waters that feed that lake also comes from the Mount. They are all together
about 15 rivers, major rivers flowing into extremely important ecological systems in
East Africa that are threatened if the Mount is related. So protecting forests is extremely
important and of course with universities doing research, trying to show how not only
is this important for the ecological systems in the area, but also very important for conflict.
As you know, one of the work that we were able to bring out very closely is the fact that
many of the local conflicts that we were having, especially in East Africa, many of these conflicts
were being fed by competition over resources, especially over land, pasture, farming land,
water, watering points and many of these conflicts are unavoidable unless we learn to manage the
resources in a responsible way, in an accountable way and also we learn to share these resources
in a more equitable way. Now these are words, but when you translate them into practicalities
on the ground, it is especially impossible to stop people fighting if there is no water
and there is only one watering point. People will fight for that watering point. If they
must stop flowing and they do stop flowing when the watershed is destroyed, people will
fight and usually when people fight, that's when people, of course, who are very far like
you here and you begin to wonder why are they fighting? Well, they are fighting over resources
because either those resources are degraded, they are diminished or they are exhausted
or they are not being shared epitably, which is the reason why we eventually got into democratic
principles where we go to a point where we realized that you can talk all day but a lot
of these things are driven by politics and unless you have politicians who are willing
to listen to the people, who are willing to pay attention to the people, they will fear
these conflicts as we all know. And so we got into educating people on the need for them
to demand better governance, to demand elections, to demand free and fair elections, to demand
that they participate in the elections. And it took a long time and to a very large extent
initially people were saying, what has trees got to do with democracy? We say, well, trees
and democracy are linked in the sense that you are dealing with resources and those who
govern or who manage these resources, those who manage those resources on our behalf,
especially the commons, must be held accountable by citizens. Now I know for people like in
Denmark and European countries generally, this is something that now we have been living
with for several hundred years, so you may not even remember the last time you had to
plead with your rulers. But for us, it is still a reality that we have to plead with our rulers
to respect our rights, to respect our dignity, to give us a chance to express ourselves.
I mentioned in the film that you could not meet, during that time, if you were more than
nine people, you could not meet without a license. You had to go to a police station
and say, I'm going to have nine people meeting in my house, can I have a license?
But most people, members of the family are more than nine. So what are you going to do?
So fighting for democracy is very, very much linked to how we promote peace and how we
promote good governance. You cannot ignore that aspect. And although, as at the university
level, you are not going to do the politics, it is very important to be able to do research
and show that linkage with documentation so that you can convince the decision makers
that indeed, good governance is part and parcel of this package. And without good governance,
you are not going to go anywhere. I want to give you another example that we did in Japan.
We went to Japan, and of course in Japan, like in many other industrialized countries,
the issue is consumerism. And I know that that is also an issue in this part of the world.
And there, we came up with an idea that is based in Japan, that talks about the use-need-use
recycle. We already knew that, but they had a concept called motinai. And motinai incorporated
the use-need-use recycle also with the word respect, gratitude. And I really thought that
was a wonderful concept, and it took off in Japan in a big way, and it's a very, very
successful campaign. It is sweeping throughout Japan, and it is amazing, especially with
their technology, it is amazing how much they can produce, the goods they can produce by recycling.
Sometimes I can't believe that those goods that they produce are not new, completely new.
They look like they are completely brand new, but they are recycled, suits, blankets,
everything on this earth. And so in their own ways, the Japanese people, using their own
situation, using their own culture, came up with this idea, and really became an agent
for change for the environment. And whatever they do, it is in the name of protecting the environment.
We know recently they had that terrible tragedy, and our hearts are still going to them because
I know there's still suffering. It was something far beyond in one of us, or in one of us people.
But they are one of people, stoic people, courageous people. They are very willing to do something
for the environment. It's a shame that nature came so hard on them.
I'm giving you these examples to show you that you can be a change agent. I want us to think
of how we can be change agents in our own situation. Here in Copenhagen, one of the things that
we have been admiring is the use of bicycle. I think we really have taken on to the bicycle.
It's so wonderful to see how many people are using bicycles. We keep telling our governance
people in Nairobi to give us a path. We don't have a path. So when you take a bicycle,
you do it at your own risk. And it's a shame because it's such a wonderful movement,
and it is a direct way of responding to the issue of global warming, the issue of transport,
the issue of greenhouse emissions. It's also good for your health. It's just fantastic,
and I wish more and more countries in the world would adopt that kind of thing.
But it does make a difference, and I'm quite sure, just like I'm being impressed,
I'm sure many people when they see many others do that, they also want to do it.
So you become an agent of change. But to become an agent of change, you have to become
an agent of change from yourself. You cannot start with somebody else. You have to start
with yourself. I mentioned that I grew my forest. I put Mirabasana for the Congo Forest,
so I'm always talking about the Congo, and trying to say, we need to save the Congo,
we need to save the Amazon, we need to save Southeast Asia, forests, because these three
blocks, again, climate change, it will tell us that without these three blocks of forest,
we wouldn't be able to deal with the climate change. We need those three blocks.
So it is really for you then to decide how can you be an agent of change.
I'm hoping that within a very short time, the partnership between the University of
Nairobi and the University of Copenhagen will make it possible for academicians and
students to come to Kenya and learn by doing. We are trying to make sure that the center
is for experiential learning, experiential learning. I didn't want to see academicians
with dirty fingers. I think it would be wonderful for them to drop the shop for a while and
go into the countryside and get their hands dirty, and try to get that knowledge out of
their heads and onto the minds of the ordinary people who needed that knowledge, to have
the capacity to translate that knowledge in a way that can really positively influence
the life of the ordinary people. This is what the institute is supposed to do.
It's supposed to inspire in us a desire to empower others and a desire to serve others.
And for me those two are probably the greatest values that human beings have.
The desire to empower others and the desire to serve. We can serve ourselves very easily,
but to offer ourselves to serve others, to empower others, to become a change agent is
the greatest gift that we can give to each other. And I am hoping that in a few years'
time, we shall be able to come back here and say the idea that we are talking about
in Copenhagen in 2011, finally materialized, and we have seen a lot of changes come out
of the University of Nairobi and the University of Copenhagen. Thank you all very much for
your time. Ladies and gentlemen, the honorary doctorate degree was conferred upon
Gary Matai as the annual celebration of the University of Copenhagen in November 2010.
Today, I will give you the actual proof that you are now an honorary doctor of the University of Copenhagen.
Please receive this proof. We knew that it is doable through the Greenbird movement
what we have done with the Greenbird movement, but now the challenge is, when we come to
the University, how are we going to make the University people, the professors, the
academicians, open up their minds and, as I have been saying, think outside the box
and see another way of teaching that could have a greater impact on communities than
we have been having so far. Maybe down the road, we will be able to say, we thought we
should do this, but this is what has happened. At the moment, we are at the very beginning.
I know it's doable, but I know that the biggest challenge is the academics themselves,
because it is difficult for them to think outside the way they are so used to thinking.
Already, they are beginning to help me develop a curriculum. They have been telling me develop
a curriculum, and I have been saying, I don't have a curriculum. I am still thinking of
what kind of a curriculum is there, because in the Greenbird movement, I don't have
a curriculum. The field is the classroom. The people are the laboratories. The field
is the laboratory. You go out there, you learn, you come back to the University, you write,
you record, you critique, and you read the world, you know what you have learned. And
in the process, we hope you will change and come to a conclusion that perhaps especially
in the part of the world, there must be another way of teaching ourselves how to deal with
our problems. So, I am sure, I am probably in the same mind frame as you are in terms
of how do we do it? How do we do it? That's the challenge. Anybody with big ideas? Let
me know. There is a group here that has done an excellent job of translating taking root
into Danish. It's a long film. It took several years in the making by some friends from the
US who wanted to capture the story of the Greenbird movement and the story of the efforts
that we had been making by capturing the spirit of how we did it. The film is actually an
illustration of how you empower communities to take charge. The whole thing is about
empowering communities to take charge, to be part of the solution rather than part of
the problem, to not wait for them to be guided or to be told what to do but rather to take
charge. So, I encourage you to visit the website and to see as much of the film as possible.
We have three decades of information that is literally waiting to be explored, waiting
to be recorded. What we have been doing has barely been recorded. It's captured a little
bit in the taking root, a little bit in the books that I have tried to write, but a huge
amount of it is still waiting to be recorded. And this is where I feel that a lot of hopefully
successful students, PhD students, students who are committed or students who want to
make differently can come and do this research and learn on the job, learn by doing. That
I think is going to be the beginning and I think that for the end of this project we
need to start especially with respect to areas where we already have conflicts that have
been generated by competition over resources. They have already been there for a decade or
so.
