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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that believes the seeds of the future lie buried

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Speaker 1: in the past. I'm Gabe Lucier and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're looking at how one Kenyan woman in the movement

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Speaker 1: she started, helped return trees to the soil of her

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Speaker 1: homeland after half a century of reckless deforestation. The day

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Speaker 1: was June fifth, nineteen seventy seven. The green Belt movement

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Speaker 1: began with a symbolic tree planting at Kamakunji Park in Nairobi, Kenya,

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Speaker 1: in recognition of World Environment Day, Professor Wangari Matai led

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Speaker 1: a group of women from downtown Nairobi to a recreational

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Speaker 1: park on the edge of the city. Once there, they

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Speaker 1: planted seven trees in honor of his oracle community leaders.

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Speaker 1: That gesture marked the beginning of the Green Belt Movement,

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Speaker 1: a Kenya based grassroots organization devoted to environmental conservation and

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Speaker 1: community empowerment. The group's name came from its wide scale

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Speaker 1: tree planting strategy, in which thousands of seedlings were planted

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Speaker 1: in long rows to form a dense band of trees,

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Speaker 1: also known as a green belt. In the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 1: Kenya was one of many regions on the African continent

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Speaker 1: to be colonized by European powers. Britain's actions, in particular,

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Speaker 1: left a lasting impact on the region's ecosystem, as huge

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Speaker 1: portions of Kenya's rainforest were cut down to make way

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Speaker 1: for lucrative tea and coffee plantations. Even after Kenya gained

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Speaker 1: its independence in nineteen sixty three, the clear cutting continued.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to the corruption of the newly installed government, Large

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Speaker 1: tracts of forested land were handed out to high ranking officials,

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Speaker 1: who then cut down the trees to build their own

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Speaker 1: luxury estates and plantations. As a result, by nineteen seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: the amount of Kenyan land covered by forest fell from

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Speaker 1: thirty percent to just two percent. The one two punch

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Speaker 1: of colonization and crony capitalism created massive economic hardships for

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Speaker 1: average citizens. Without adequate tree cover, much of the region's

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Speaker 1: fertile top soil was washed away and crops withered in

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Speaker 1: the sun with nothing to shade them. Many farmers struggled

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Speaker 1: to feed their own families, much less their communities, but

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Speaker 1: few were willing to speak out on the issue. Due

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Speaker 1: to fear of government reprisal. The woman who finally helped

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Speaker 1: break that cycle of exploitation was Kenyan native Wangari Matai.

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Speaker 1: Born on April first, nineteen forty and the small village

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Speaker 1: of Ihit, Matai knew little of the environmental destruction and

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Speaker 1: political oppression that plagued much of mid century Africa. She

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Speaker 1: attended the primary school in her village and showed herself

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Speaker 1: to be such a promising student that her family bore

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Speaker 1: the financial burden of sending her to a Catholic boarding

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Speaker 1: school and then a Catholic high school. Her graduation happened

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Speaker 1: to coincide with a new US initiative called the Kennedy Airlift,

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Speaker 1: a program which offered an American education to several hundred

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Speaker 1: African students, one of whom was Hungari herself. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty she began attending Mount Saint Scholastica College in Kansas,

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Speaker 1: where she cultivated her growing passion for chemistry and biology.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, she earned a spot at the

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Speaker 1: University of Pittsburgh, where she conducted several years of research

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Speaker 1: on the pineal gland. By nineteen sixty six, Mattai had

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Speaker 1: earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees in biology, and

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Speaker 1: thanks largely to her exposure to the US civil rights movement,

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Speaker 1: she'd become a strong human rights advocate as well. That

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Speaker 1: same year, she returned to Kenya and continued her studies

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Speaker 1: at the University of Nairobi. Five years later, Matai made

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Speaker 1: history for the first of many times by becoming the

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Speaker 1: first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a

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Speaker 1: doctorate degree. For the next several years, she remained at

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Speaker 1: the University of Nairobi as a professor, teaching veterinarian anatomy

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Speaker 1: and later becoming the chair of her department, another first

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Speaker 1: for a Kenyan woman. During the course of her tenure,

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Speaker 1: Matti's field work with livestock studies took her all over Africa,

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Speaker 1: where she witnessed first hand the harrowing effects of the

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Speaker 1: government's environmental degradation. Meanwhile, she also began working with the

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Speaker 1: National Council of Women in Kenya, an organization focused on

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Speaker 1: rural women's issues, education, and the environment. Her work with

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Speaker 1: the group exposed her to the growing social problems faced

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Speaker 1: by communities like the one she'd grown up in, and

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Speaker 1: the more she explored those issues the more she realized

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Speaker 1: they were directly connected to the poor health of the land.

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Speaker 1: For example, many Kenyan women suffered from malnutrition because there

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Speaker 1: wasn't enough firewood left in the cleared out forests to

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Speaker 1: cook with. That forced the women to eat more processed foods,

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Speaker 1: which were faster to cook but also far less nutritious.

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Speaker 1: Another major concern was a lack of clean drinking water.

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Speaker 1: Rampant soil erosion had clogged the region's rivers with silt,

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Speaker 1: leaving downstream communities with an ever dwindling supply of water

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Speaker 1: to drink, cook and bathe with. In both those cases

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Speaker 1: and in a dozen more just like them, the natural

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Speaker 1: solution was to replace what had been lost, and while

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Speaker 1: local level action could never restore the great forests that

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Speaker 1: had been cleared for British cultivation, planting slots of trees

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Speaker 1: and traditional villages was a way to counteract at least

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Speaker 1: some of the damage done to small communities. As Matai

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Speaker 1: once explained, quote, if you destroy the forest, then the

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Speaker 1: river will stop flowing, the rains will become a regular,

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Speaker 1: the crops will fail, and you will die of hunger

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Speaker 1: and starvation. Planting trees breaks the cycle. When we can

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Speaker 1: give ourselves food, firewood, and help to nurture soil for

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Speaker 1: planting and clean water, then we begin to roll poverty back.

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Speaker 1: With that goal in mind, Matai proposed community tree planting

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Speaker 1: as a project for the National Council of Women of Kenya.

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Speaker 1: The group's Environment and Habitat Committee was initially opposed to

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Speaker 1: the idea, but since it was the best proposal they'd received,

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Speaker 1: the project was ultimately approved. Matai called the venture the

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Speaker 1: green belt Movement, and its inaugural tree planting ceremony took

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Speaker 1: place in a Nairobi park on June fifth, nineteen seventy seven.

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Speaker 1: Seven trees were planted that day, two of which still

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Speaker 1: survive under the care of the Nairobi City Council. Three

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Speaker 1: months after the tree planting and Nairobi, a second green

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Speaker 1: belt was established on land and owned by a rural

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Speaker 1: women's cooperative in the nearby district of Kiambu. From there,

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Speaker 1: Matai and the GBM continued to encourage women to plant

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Speaker 1: tree nurseries all over Kenya. Matai extolled the practice not

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Speaker 1: only as a way to combat food insecurity, but as

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Speaker 1: a way for disenfranchised women to reclaim a sense of

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Speaker 1: agency in their communities. By banding together to grow seedlings

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Speaker 1: and plant trees, Kenyan women would be protecting their environment

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Speaker 1: and working for mutual benefit, a mindset which Professor Matai

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Speaker 1: considered vital to Kenya's sustainable development. As she once said, quote,

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Speaker 1: it's a matter of life and death for this country.

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Speaker 1: The Kenyan forests are facing extinction, and it is a

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Speaker 1: man made problem. You cannot protect the environment unless you

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Speaker 1: empower people. You inform them, and you help them understand

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Speaker 1: that these resources are their own that they must protect them.

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Speaker 1: Under Matai's leadership, the Green Belt movement expanded beyond Kenya

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six to other African nations. A year later,

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Speaker 1: the GBM became its own organization, fully distinct from the

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Speaker 1: National Council of Women in Kenya. In addition to tree plantings,

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Speaker 1: the group also held peaceful protests against land grabbing and

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Speaker 1: the encroachment of agriculture into national forests. In the decades

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Speaker 1: that followed, Matai continued to mobilize African women for environmental causes.

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Speaker 1: The work sometimes brought her into conflict with various governments,

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Speaker 1: as any time a well healed official was rewarded with

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Speaker 1: a patch of national forest. The Green Belt movement was

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Speaker 1: there to shine a light on the misuse of public land.

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Speaker 1: As a result, Matai, the face of the movement, was

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Speaker 1: routinely targeted by the government. She was arrested numerous times,

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Speaker 1: was beaten and whipped by guards during protests, and was

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Speaker 1: even barred from employment in most public sectors. However, despite

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Speaker 1: these emotional and economical hardships, she never wavered in her

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Speaker 1: fight for the ecology of her homeland and for the

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Speaker 1: political empowerment of her people. The more the government tried

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Speaker 1: to suppress her message, the more determined she became, and

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Speaker 1: the more her fellow citizens took notice. Her dedication to

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Speaker 1: the betterment of her people helped inspire a revolution in Kenya.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, the country finally allowed the existence

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Speaker 1: of more than one political party, and by two thousand

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Speaker 1: and two, the Moi administration, which had oppressed Kenyans for decades,

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Speaker 1: was removed from power. That same year, Matai herself was

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Speaker 1: elected to parliament with an astounding ninety eight percent of

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Speaker 1: the vote. She became the assistant Minister of Kenya's Ministry

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Speaker 1: for Environment and Natural Resources, and in two thousand and four,

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Speaker 1: she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution

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Speaker 1: to sustainable development, democracy and peace. She was the first

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Speaker 1: environmentalist and the first African woman to receive that honor.

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Speaker 1: Wangari Matai died on September twenty fifth, twenty eleven, from

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Speaker 1: complications of ovarian cancer, but the work she began with

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Speaker 1: the Green Belt movement goes on to date. More than

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Speaker 1: fifty one million trees across the African continent and beyond

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Speaker 1: have been planted, trees that have slow deforestation and erosion

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Speaker 1: and bettered the lives of countless people who live alongside them.

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Speaker 1: On its website, the GBM succinctly summarizes Matai's life work, saying, quote,

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Speaker 1: there is legacy enough there for several lifetimes, and proof

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Speaker 1: that just as a single tree can begin the process

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Speaker 1: of transforming a landscape, a single person, however humbly born,

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Speaker 1: can become the catalyst for continental and world change. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gabe Luzier and hopefully you now know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you and

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Speaker 1: joy today's episode, consider keeping up with us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at TDI HC Show and If you have

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Speaker 1: any comments or suggestions, feel free to send them my

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Speaker 1: way by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays and Ben Hackett for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in history class