Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
Wangari MaathaiRead
I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the dual responsibility of protecting the environment while also enhancing governance.
Wangari Maathai's quote highlights the interconnectedness of environmental preservation and effective governance. It asserts that protecting the environment cannot be a solitary effort; to achieve true sustainability, there needs to be a robust framework of governance that ensures accountability, transparency, and collaborative efforts amongst all stakeholders. This perspective underlines the need for systemic change alongside ecological consciousness.
In practice
In an environmental conference to emphasize the role of governance in sustainability efforts.
Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
I know there is pain when sawmills close and people lose jobs, but we have to make a choice. We need water and we need these forests.
We’re constantly being bombarded by problems that we face and sometimes we can get completely overwhelmed. [But] we should always feel like a hummingbird. I may feel insignificant, but I don’t want to be like the other animals watching the planet go down the drain. I’ll be a hummingbird, I’ll do the best I can.
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
It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement's work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values.
Will the new environmental leaders fight for eco-equity in this new "green economy" they are birthing?
We do not have to choose between a healthy environment and a healthy economy.
I think history shows that countries have to have some kind of a threshold level of economic success before they begin to have the means and the will to focus on the environment.
Environmental quality was drastically improved while economic activity grew by the simple expedient of removing lead from gasoline - which prevented it from entering the environment.
We need a new environmental consciousness on a global basis. To do this, we need to educate people.
The features that have made plastic so important in the global market are the same ones that make it such a pervasive pollutant: durability and resistance to degradation.
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