Breaking the Cycle of Poverty – Planting Trees and the Nobel Prize

” I listened as women related what they wanted but did not have enough of: energy, clean drinking water and nutritious food. My response was to begin planting trees with them, to help heal the land and break the cycle of poverty.”Wangari Maathai, the 2004 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is Kenya’s assistant minister for environment and natural resources and the founder of the Green Belt Movement.

Trees stop soil erosion, leading to water conservation and increased rainfall. Trees provide fuel, material for building and fencing, fruits, fodder, shade and beauty. As household managers in rural and urban areas of the developing world, women are the first to encounter the effects of ecological stress. It forces them to walk farther to get wood for cooking and heating, to search for clean water and to find new sources of food as old ones disappear.

My idea evolved into the Green Belt Movement, made up of thousands of groups, primarily of women, who have planted 30 million trees across Kenya.

For the full story

http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/