Environmental campaigners make it their business to be a thorn-in-the-side of governments. So what makes an environmental activist, go into politics? This two-part edition of Earth Report talks to four environmental activists who crossed the divide to become leading politicians. Their backgrounds could not be more different; from a medical doctor to the daughter of a rubber-tapper; a Buddhist to a PHD student. They've also won international recognition through awards from the UN and the Goldman Environmental Prize.
In Part One we speak to Wangari Maathai and Tuenjai Deetes.
Heaven is Green
"My name is Wangari Maathai. I was born in Nyeri some 60 years ago...as a child I grew up just seeing vegetation all around me, and seeing streams, clean, beautiful streams. In our language we don't have a word for desert, because we have never saw. Our land was always covered with forests and trees and vegetation."
"I love the trees, I love the colour. To me they represent life, and they represent hope. Once you've planted them they grow up, they grow taller than yourself, they speak to you, they give you shade, they give you a sense of satisfaction. I think it is the green colour. I tell people I think heaven is green."
Green Belt
Starting in 1977 with a small tree nursery in her back yard, Wangari Maathai launched Kenya's Green Belt Movement, a grassroots tree planting organisation that was run largely by women. The verdant Kenya of her childhood was becoming brown and dusty. Green Belt was her personal commitment to doing something about it, and in fact the problems facing Kenya's rural women provided inspiration for the idea.
"The issues around women actually made me conceive the idea that I could plant trees with women in the rural areas...mainly to provide them with energy, give them food - especially fruits - also building and fencing material and to protect the land from soil erosion...and generally to encourage Kenyans about the need to protect the environment."
20 Million Trees
Kenya's forest now covers just 2% of the land surface. There would have been even fewer trees without the Green Belt Movement, which has planted over 20 million since it was established.
Battle for Uhuru Park
Conserving Kenya's trees sometimes brought Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement into conflict with Kenya's ruling KANU party, led by President Daniel arap Moi.
"In 1989 we objected strongly and actively to suggestion that the ruling party KANU would build a skyscraper in Uhuru Park which would have meant losing one of the very few open spaces left in Nairobi. That was outrageous. We objected to it, we went to court, we lost the case but I must say that we won the war because the public was on our side, although it was at a time when the ruling party was very powerful, and the President had become a full time dictator we were able to win."
Wangari Maathai's determination to stand up to the Kenyan government, came at a cost. She and members of Green Belt suffered increasing government harrassment - despite the fact that Kenya was host country of the UN's Environment Programme.
"The government became very unhappy with us - we had to eventually physically fight to force ourselves in to the forest to plant trees and replace the ones that had been cut. Elements in the government did even hire rogues and vagabonds to actually attack us while we were in the forests. There were violent attacks, and some of us nearly lost our lives. It was not a joke."
Light at the End of the Tunnel
But international recognition provided a degree of protection. In 1991 Dr Maathai was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize.
"This recognition by the Goldman Environmental Prize was almost like a cover around us. It provided us with a protective shield, because the government recognised that somebody from very far in the USA recognised this work."
Change was also being forced on the regime of Arap Moi by both Kenyans and an international donor community fed up with corruption and repressive rule.
"The long road that we had walked started showing us light at the end of the tunnel."
Political Ambitions
As government pressure on her eased off, Dr Maathai's supporters urged her to consider, moving into politics herself. But she saw reasons to bide her time.
"Since 1992, they had been telling me I ought to join the government - they felt that if I were in government there will be a difference. People don't quite understand how these political games are played...and so they think that just because you become an MP you ought to be able to do everything for them, so I really did not want to go in there unless our side of the political divide was the one in power...because if we were in power, I could see opportunities for change..."
It was to be a full ten years before her political ambitions were realised. The election of President Mwai Kibaki brought to an end four decades of KANU rule, 24 years of them headed by Daniel arap Moi. It was also the beginning of Wangari Maathai's political career in government.
"When I went to my people and I said I am interested now, I think we can win, I think we should be in this coalition...I was overwhelmed by the support that I got... 97% of the people in my constituency voted for me, that was a huge mandate."
Government for the People
President Mwai Kibaki has vowed to stamp out corruption in Kenya, and to bring a new era of openness and transparency to the country. Wangari's position in the new government is Assistant Minister for the Environment.
"Now, one of the reasons why I feel this is a great time to be in parliament and to be in government is because Moi is gone, his ruling party is gone and now we are ruling in a coalition of mostly pro-democracy advocates whom for many years were trying to change the system. So now, we have an opportunity to do all that we had wanted to do for so many years."
"I got into politics because I believed in something. I had stood up for something....and I wanted some of the values for which I had lived and worked and strived to find themselves into the mainstream politics in Kenya. I saw the possibilities were enormous. Now we have a government of the people for the first time I think."
Today there are over five-thousand grassroots nurseries throughout Kenya, and though Wangari's time is mostly taken up by politics she is still actively involved in the Green Belt Movement. In rural areas her ideas and values are deeply entrenched in people's minds.
"I find that relationship with the people amazing...it is almost like we have made a contract with them, that I must be the person who makes sure that the environment is rectified...I must make people feel that this government is taking care of the environment."
Meddling with the Mekong
"I am Tuenjai Deetes, the Senator of Chiang Rai Province in the Northern part of Thailand. I come to the Mekong district to attend a public meeting of the Mekong Navigation Channel Improvement Project."
Over 60 million people in southeast Asia depend on the Mekong river for food, water and transport. But their river is under threat. The Mekong is the world's twelth longest river. It runs 4,800 kilometers from its headwaters on the Tibetan Plateau through Yunnan Province of China, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam. China is building a series of large dams on its section of the river. Two have been completed, a third is under construction and more are planned. The Chinese dams were built without consultation with their downstream neighbours. Already the Mekong ecology appears to be suffering as a result of the dams. Fishermen on the Mekong say fishstocks are reduced and in June 2004 the river level dropped to record lows, stranding vessels. Growing anger at the Chinese has turned into an organised movement to stop the construction of more dams and navigation projects - by either China, or any of the other countries that the Mekong flows through. The Mekong Navigation Channel Improvement Project is a plan to open up the river to large ships. It's a joint project between the governments of China, Burma, Thailand, and Lao PDR. Campaigners say there has been no real assessment of the likely impacts such an action would have on the river, and those who depend on it to survive. Spearheading the opposition is one of Thailand's most respected environmental campaigners - Tuenjai Deetes.
"Over 100 people come to the meeting, men and women, the old and the young...all of them say the same thing, that this project just come from the top, from the government. The people, the grassroots people, no-one knew about this. The ecosystem of the Mekong river has been changing. So the fish, the fishermen, the people who live along the river, has caused a lot of difficulties in their lives."
"They say that if the government really loves the people and they're really interested for the benefit of the people, just please stop them, please change the agreement with the Chinese government, please listen to the voice of the people."
Learning from the Hill Tribes
Tuenjai Deetes became an environmental campaigner in the early 1970s when she was teaching the Thai language to hill tribe communities in northern Thailand. At that time, the hill tribes were largely excluded from mainstream Thai culture.
"When I came up to work in Northern Thailand, I had studied the strength and the wisdom of the hill tribe people that they have the wisdom of respect for nature, they respect the trees, the river, the land, the sky the moon, that is similar to the teaching of the Lord Buddha."
"The hill tribes they have their own identity, their special language and special culture. I want to be the bridge between the hill tribe and the lowland people, to let the government understand them and support them."
"Huay Hin Lard Nai village is a Karen village, it is a very small village of only 95 people and 19 households. They are one of the best example of people who live in and preserve the forest, the people of Huay Hin Lard Nai know every tree, every bird and the spirit of them are with the tree...they not follow the mainstream of development, they never follow the capitalism, and materialism, and consumerism, so I really appreciate the culture and wisdom of the hilltribe people."
"The forest around the Karen village is rich and perfect forest that feeds people for the whole year. Everyone, everyday, people can go to the forest and get food and fruit and vegetable from along the river or the fruit from the trees."
Goldman Prize
By the mid-1980s Tuenjai was acting as the hill tribes' unofficial spokesperson. In 1986 she established the Hill Area Development Foundation to represent the interests of the hill tribes.
"I try my best to be the mediator between the people in the rural areas ,the people who have less opportunity and less voice to speak up...their voice must be listened to by the government and by the Thai society."
In 1994 her work won Tuenjai the Goldman Environmental prize.
"After I win the prize, the media in Thailand always interviews me about the environment and conservation, so from then on, I was recognised more by the Thai people... then when I make a decision that I want to be a politician, because the senator of Thailand will not be under any political party, I will have freedom to think and to work and to do any movement with the people to preserve the nature... So the government, the non-governmental organisations or NGOs and the parliament and Senate concerned more about the hill tribe people as a citizen of Thailand."
Today much of the Senator's time is taken up travelling to remote villages where she finds out first hand the problems faced by the Hill Tribes.
"The forest land should belong to the community, because everyone can use it, and take care of it, and can pass to the next generation, the future generation. The problem is still that the human rights, basic rights of the hill tribes, in some place, they do not get citizenship yet, so it is in the process I am going to support them to get legal status.
Crossing the Divide
In 1999 Tuenjai was elected senator of Chiang Rai Province. It's a position that she feels allows her greater scope to help the people of the Hill Tribes.
"I am crossing the divide from social activist to become a senator. That makes me have more opportunity to help the people solve their problems. Before that, I could not meet the cabinet or the Prime Minister or the big person...but because I am the Senator, I can use many approaches to help people."
"My thought for the future is peace and the future relationship between human beings and nature. The rich countries should not take advantage of the poor countries and in the future we should only have peace and brotherhood. I wish the world should not have rich and poor, but only brotherhood and peace."
