Heaven Is Green: An Interview With Wangari Maathai

Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai is best known as the recipient of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her work to protect the environment, promote democracy, and ensure sustainable development in Africa. A former university professor of veterinary anatomy, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 by planting seven trees at a public park in downtown Nairobi. Since then, she and thousands of rural women (and some men) have planted more than 30 million trees. In the process, women have earned much-needed income from their seedlings and created a ready source of firewood, fodder, building material, and even food (from fruit trees) that they control. Many of these women have gained confidence and a greater voice in their families and communities.

In 2002, Maathai was elected to Kenya's Parliament. She also currently serves as Assistant Environment Minister in the government of Mwai Kibaki. What is perhaps less well-known is that she was educated at mission schools by Catholic nuns (first Italian and then Irish), and earned a scholarship to study at Mt. St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (now Benedictine College). There, she picked up a degree in biology and what she calls her "Kansas accent."

Maathai, 65, remains a practicing Catholic while drawing on the tenets of other faiths and the religious expression of her community, the Kikuyu (one of Kenya's ethnic groups or "micro-nations," a term Maathai prefers). The Kikuyus' spiritual home, Mount Kenya, literally Kenya's highest mountain, looms large over the valleys of the central highlands. Under its shadow, Maathai planted a celebratory tree last fall when her Nobel Prize was announced. She spoke recently with writer Mia MacDonald for Beliefnet.

How would you describe your spiritual life?

I do have faith, and I believe in God. I come from a tradition where God was a given. I would say I am a good student of Jesus Christ. I read the Bible and am inspired by it. I use it a lot in my environmental work. But I also listen to what the Buddhists tell us. I listen to what the Qu'ran tells us about God and life and values, about how we should relate to each other and the environment.

Have your beliefs changed over the years?

When we were young we were very restricted-certainly I was in my teens. When we would go to a Catholic church, we could not sing the Protestant hymns. And in the Protestant church, you could not sing the Catholic hymns. At that time, I felt it was right. Now, it seems very dogmatic and closed. Other religious traditions help you be more broad-based and have a more open mind. I have come to understand and appreciate ecumenism and what the late pope [John Paul II] was trying to do. Often, we are divided not by faith or dogmas or the substance of what we believe, but by issues articulated by individuals. If individuals do not quite agree, we go our separate ways.

Did your spiritual beliefs inform the work you began nearly 30 years for the environment through the Green Belt Movement?

In the course of my work I wasn't really thinking about religion or God specifically. I was dealing with problems as they confronted me. I was responding to [the needs of] rural women. But when you look into my past, there is definitely an influence on the way I think, the way I do things, the way I respond and the way I work to serve people who are in trouble or disadvantaged. That comes from the teachers I spent a lot of my young years with, Catholic nuns. I'm quite sure that the teaching and the example of their lives influenced me to have a strong desire to serve the common good.

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