"We plant the seeds of peace now and in the future."

ПОСАДИТЬ ДЕРЕВО

Дерево – извечный символ жизни, и её работа – больше, чем защита окружающей среды. Это стратегия укрепления самого основания политики – не только в её стране, но в мире в целом. Методы Маатай приняты на вооружение рядом стран африканского континента. Фактически, она главный лидер в борьбе за экологические и социальные права людей, живущих между Египтом и ЮАР Текст: Сергей Ивашко, Фото AFP.

Неслыханным вызовом мировому общественному мнению стало выдвижение среди прочих 194-х кандидатов на Нобелевскую премию Мира сего года одиозного дуэта полит-рецидивистов «Буш/Блэр». Мало ребятам что сотворили – премию им подай, и не весть какую, а таки мира!

Вот такие реалии веремени. Уничтожителе Системы Международной Безопасности, не одно столетие в муках созидаемую лучшими умами планеты, выдвигают сегодня на премии. Волков даже не в шкурах, насквозь в человеческой крови, убийц сотен тысяч невинных людей, поставивших под угрозу глобальный мир и само существование планеты, хотят объявить чуть ли не главными миротворцами.

Провидением не допущено беспрецедентное кощунство. Кто там собрался помогать Африке? Погодите, дорогие, не спешите. От вашей зелени, «помощи» так называемой, – бомб вперемешку с конфетами, всех давно тошнит. Тем более, что Африка сама спешит вам на помощь – в лице миловидной и курносой афро-африканки, несущей миру Зелень совершенно иного сорта. Настоящую. Без подвоха. Именно такая Зелень дарит лёгким кислород, шумит свежим ветром и утоляет мучения духовной безысходности, в которые вы ввергаете планету.

Норвежский Нобелевский Комитет решил предоставить премию за 2004 год Вангари Маатай «за вклад в устойчивое развитие человечества, демократию и мир».

«Профессор Маатай объединила научную работу, социальную борьбу и активную политику в единое целое». РАЗВИТИЕ, а не разрушение, СОЗИДАНИЕ – а отнюдь не уничтожение и войны вновь признаны ПРИОРИТЕТНЫМИ на планете Земля, которую так упорно пытаются столкнуть за край человеческого понимания мироустройства – здравого смысла вообще.

Нобелевская премия мира ушла в кенийские леса. Дай Бог, чтобы женщины навели наконец порядок на разрушенной войнами и мужскими амбициями многострадальной Земле. Дай Бог, чтобы великое это Событие стало добрым Предзнаменованием начала Эры Созидания для всего человечества! А какой пример Любви и Материнской Заботы о живом, в лице Вангари Маатай, дан другим народам, дан России, которую Творец несметно одарил красотой и величием природы и ничего доброго пока не возымел от неё в ответ.

Политическая деятельность новой лауреатки началась именно с саженцев. За прошедшие 27 лет последовательницы Вангари Маатай посадили 30 млн деревьев. Это изменило политику целого континента в отношении экологии. Как говорится в официальном пресс-релизе Комитета, «мир на земле зависит от нашей способности сохранять окружающую среду. Маатай стоит на переднем крае борьбы за экологическое, экономическое, социальное и культурное развитие жителей Кении. Она нашла способ совершать локальные действия, которые могут решить глобальные проблемы».

Вангари Маатай сажает деревья

Основанное Маатай в 1977 году и возглавляемое до сих пор общественное Движение зеленого пояса (Green Belt Movement), состоящее из беднейших женщин страны, организует общественные лесопосадки. Для Кении важно каждое дерево, причем не только для сохранения экосистемы и рек, но и для обеспечения дровами, которые 90% сельского населения использует для приготовления пищи. Участники движения организуют питомники для выращивания саженцев, которые потом бесплатно раздают всем желающим.

За прошедшие годы представители «Зеленого пояса» посадили больше 30 млн деревьев и защитили их от незаконной вырубки. На последних выборах в парламент, проходивших в 2002 году, Вангари Маатай с большим перевесом победила представителя правящей партии и была избрана в кенийский парламент. На проходивших затем президентских выборах она заявила, что кандидат от оппозиционной партии поддерживает природоохранное движение, чем резко подняла его рейтинг. Она заставила президента предпринять конкретные шаги по улучшению экологической обстановки, чтобы не разочаровать выбравшее его население.

В январе 2003 года назначенный президентом Кибаки министр окружающей среды Ньютон Кулунду сделал Вангари Маатай своим заместителем. Теперь правительство Кении обещает до 2008 года повысить лесистость страны с нынешних 2% до научно рекомендованных 10%.

Как отмечает Нобелевский комитет, «профессор Маатай объединила научную работу, социальную борьбу и активную политику в единое целое». Ее работа – больше, чем защита окружающей среды. Ее стратегия должна укрепить само основание экологической политики страны. Методы Маатай приняты на вооружение рядом стран африканского континента. Фактически она – духовный лидер борьбы за экологические и социальные права людей, живущих между

Египтом и ЮАР.

Вангари Маатай – первая африканская женщина, удостоенная Нобелевской премии мира. Более того, она вообще первый Человек огромной территории между Египтом и ЮАР, удостоенный этой награды. «Она – пример и источник жизненной силы для каждого в Африке, кто борется за устойчивое развитие, демократию и мир», – говорится в пресс-релизе Нобелевского комитета.

Размер премии в этом году составил $1,36 млн. В прошлом году премия была присуждена иранской правозащитнице и адвокату Ширин Эбади «за многолетнюю борьбу за демократию и права человека».

О других претендентах на Нобелевскую премию мира этого года

Среди 194 претендентов, наиболее серьезным конкурентом Вангари Маатай на почетную награду были: папа Римский Иоанн Павел II, президент Франции Жак Ширак, российский активист антиядерного движения Александр Никитин (в прошлом капитан военно-морского флота, разгласивший детали функционирования атомного флота и сброса радиоактивных отходов в период с 1965 по 1989 год).

На финальном этапе конкурса жюри выбирало между тремя кандидатами: Маатай, Никитиным, и директором Международного агентства по атомной энергии Мохаммедом Эль Барадеем, на основе международных инспекций направившем заявление в Совет безопасности ООН об отсутствии несанкционированных атомных программ в Ираке.

Среди прочих кандидатур наибольший рейтинг имели американские сенаторы Ричард Лугар и Сэм Нанн (в отставке) за работу по демонтажу устаревших советских ядерных боеголовок, южноафри-канский борец со СПИДом Заки Ахмат, российский правозащитник Сергей Ковалев и израильский физик-ядерщик Мордехай Вануну.

Среди наиболее откровенных аутсайдеров, чьи кандидатуры были выдвинуты на рассмотрение Нобелевского комитета, были действующий американский президент Джордж Буш и Тони Блэр. Но увы, эти типажи, как и их боевые подруги, годны пожалуй лишь на лидерство в рейтингах хэллоувинских масок.

Nobel Peace Prize goes to Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai Fri Oct 8, 8:48 PM ET

OSLO (AFP) - Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, whose campaign to save Africa's forests began with nine trees in her yard nearly three decades ago, won the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the first African woman to take the award and never before has an environmental cause been honoured by the Nobel Committee since the prize was first awarded in 1901.

Maathai, Kenya's assistant minister for the environment since 2003, is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, the largest tree planting project in Africa, which aims to promote biodiversity, job creation and to give women a stronger identity in society. The decision reflects nvironmentalism's extraordinary rise from the wings to the centre stage of politics, and was hailed by ecologists the world over.

Environmental movement Greenpeace welcomed the official recognition of the link between ecology and peace.

"We're clearly delighted that the influential Nobel Committee has put the green into peace," the pressure group's spokesman Michael Townsley told AFP. Jennifer Morgan, the World Wildlife Fund's climate change director, said the Nobel decision was a "breakthrough" for recognizing that environment issues are "interwoven with security, peace, prosperity and stability".

Maathai, 64, stands at the "front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and Africa," the Nobel Committee said in its citation. "She thinks globally and acts locally," the committee said. In Germany, Chancellor Helmut Schroeder said Maathai "had given hope to people around the world."

In Warsaw, Lech Walesa, winner of the 1983 Nobel peace price, welcomed the award of this year's prize to Maathai as "a good idea" in the face of the environmental problems around the world. South African President Thabo Mbeki said: "Africans all walk tall today as we congratulate this remarkable woman."

Maathai said she was delighted at having won the prize and pledged to pursue her environmental work.

"I thank God and my ancestors for this award. This is a great honour for me and my fellow environmenta-lists who have suffered together over the years," she said at the foot of Mount Kenya. Voted Time Magazine's "Hero of the Planet" in 1998 and a household name in her country, Maathai said the award had been the "biggest surprise in my entire life".

Deforestation has been a major problem in Kenya, exposing millions of people to drought and poverty. Maathai's ecological campaign began in 1977 when she sowed nine tree seeds in her yard and founded an organisation which has since planted more than 30 million trees throughout Africa. The organisation and its nurseries now employ tens of thousands of people in Kenya and elsewhere.

Yet forests still cover less than two percent of Kenya's land, far below the United Nations (news - web sites)' recom-mended minimum of 10 percent. "Many wars in the world are actually fought over natural resources," Maathai told Norwegian radio. "We plant the seeds of peace, now and in the future." Maathai is a biologist by training. She was the first woman in eastern Africa to receive a doctorate and become a professor.

The latest Nobel laureate is also an human rights activist in Kenya, and her opposition to the one-party rule of former president Daniel arap Moi led to her being jailed, harassed and vilified. "She has served as inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights and has especially encouraged women to better their situation," the Nobel Committee said.

Maathai was elected to the Kenyan parliament on the Green Party ticket in December 2002 in the first free elections held in the country in decades. The choice of Maathai, which came a day after Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek won the Literature Prize, put women centre stage in the 2004 Nobel prize season. But experts cautioned that there was little chance that the male-dominated Nobel pantheon would become a temple of egalitarianism -- women have received fewer than one in 20 of all Nobel prizes awarded since 1901.

Choosing ecology was also seen as a decision by the five-person Norwegian committee to ease up on George W. Bush. The last three peace laureates -- UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), former US president Jimmy Carter and Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi -- have all been critical of the US president, who hopes to win another term in office in elections on November 2.

"These past few years, the Nobel prize has provoked criticism against the US administration. It seems reasonable to take a break from this criticism," said Stein Toennesson, head of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.

Maathai will receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which consists of a gold medal, a diploma and cheque worth 1.3 million dollars (1.1 million euros), at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the prize's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, in 1896.

The 2004 Nobel prize season closes on Monday with the Economics prize. Nobel Prize website

2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Kenya's Assistant Minister for Environment, Professor Wangari Maathai (L) is congratulated by Kenya's President, Mwai Kibaki at State House in Nairobi while the Norwegian ambassador to Kenya, Kjell Herald Dalen, looks on. Maathai is the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the first time in history the Nobel committee has honoured an environmental cause.(AFP/Tony Karumba)

An arial view of Mount Kenya. Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai declared war on charcoal burners, marijuana growers, loggers and farmers, who she said had "raped" Mount Kenya, the country's highest mountain.(AFP/File/Simon Maina)

Nobel Peace prize winner Wangari Maathai (L) leads a traditional dance during a press conference in Nairobi October 9, 2004 at the headquarters of the Green Belt Movement. Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the first Nobel given to an environmentalist, honored for fighting poverty by trying to save the continent's shrinkingforests.REUTERS/RaduSigheti

Nobel Peace prize winner Wangari Maathai poses for photographers in Nairobi October 9, 2004. Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the first Nobel given to an environmentalist, honored for fighting poverty by trying to save the continent's shrinking forests. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti

OSLO, Norway (CNN) -- Kenyan Deputy Environment Minister Wangari Muta Maathai has been named winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, beating a number of much better known world names to the prestigious award. Jeanne Daigle, BellaOnline's African Culture Editor

"It cannot get any better than this -- maybe in heaven," Maathai said after learning of the award. She had wept with delight and planted a tree in her home town of Nyeri in the shadow of Mount Kenya, Africa's second highest peak, when she heard the news, Reuters reported.

Maathai, 64, is the first African woman to win the prize. She was cited for her work as leader of the Green Belt Movement that has planted more than 30 million trees across Africa. Awarded the peace prize "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace," she has also campaigned for broader women's rights. (Profile)

The award marks a new environmental theme in interpreting the 1895 will of Swedish philanthropist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite who founded the prestigious prize. Until now it has most usually gone to people seeking to end armed conflicts. "Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment," said Ole Danbolt Mjoes, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.36 million) and will be handed out in Oslo on December 10. "We have emphasised the environment, democracy building and human rights and especially women's rights," Mjoes said of the prize. "We have added a new dimension to the concept of peace."

Maathai's win came as a suprise to most observers. U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed El Baradei had been the clear favorite.

Outsiders

A late tip was Russian anti-nuclear activist Alexander Nikitin, a former navy captain who who leaked details of the nuclear fleet and dumping of radioactive waste from 1965 to 1989.

Others said to be in the running were U.S. Senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn for work to dismantle ageing Soviet nuclear warheads and South African AIDS treatment lobbyist, Zackie Achmat.

Internet bookmaker Centrebet, the first to organize betting on the contest, had listed ElBaradei and the IAEA as favorites at 4-1, with Nunn-Lugar at 6-1 while Achmat, Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalyov and Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu were all on 7-1.

Centrebet spokesman Mark Worwood told CNN that they had lost money on the contest -- as she was such an outsider, you couldn't bet on Maathai by name, only as "any other" an option which was backed down from 5-1 to 6-4 on the final day.

He added that a significant amount of money had been bet on George W. Bush, forcing the firm to cut their price on the U.S. President from 1000-1 to 25-1.

Norway's NRK public television, which has often predicted the winner, said early Friday -- accurately as it turned out -- the prize might go to an environmentalist. Along with Baradei it had named as being in the final contenders Maathai and Nikitin.

'Great surprise'

Maathai, was "going about her business" in a remote area of Kenya when the announcement came from Oslo, her daughter told CNN. Her family in Nairobi did not wait for her to celebrate, she said. "It's really a great surprise," Wangira Maathai said. With a record 194 nominations, the committee had a broad field to choose from.

"As a country we're greatly honored. This is a great moment in Kenyan history. To us this shows that what Wangari

Maathai has been doing here has been recognized. We're very proud of her and she deserves all the credit," government spokesman Alfred Mutua said.

Last year, the Nobel committee also awarded the prize to a woman -- human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, the first Iranian to receive the honor.

Wangari Maathai – Tree Woman of Kenya

Wangari Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya in 1940. She attended primary and secondary school in Kenya. Wangari attended Scholastica College and the University of Pittsburgh. She returned to Kenya and became a research assistant at the University of Nairobi. Eventually, Wangari earned a doctorate from the university – the first woman to do so in all of eastern and central Africa. She also became the first woman to become a professor at the University of Nairobi.

Wangari's husband left her and her three children. He was given a divorce on the grounds that Wangari was "too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn, and too hard to control." Wangari has been denounced by women's groups and the Kenyan government for violating African traditions and not submitting to men.

Wangari began Kenya's Green Belt Movement starting with a small tree nursery in her backyard in 1977. The goal of the Green Belt Movement was to replace the trees that had been cut down, to curb erosion, to protect the future of Kenya's land for her children and their children. Very quickly the grassroots movement spread. By the early 1980's, there were approximately 600 tree nurseries involving 2,000 to 3,000 women. In 1986, the Green Belt Movement established a Pan African Green Belt Network and introduced its approach to many other African countries. Over a 10 million trees have been planted and chapter have been started in more than a dozen other African countries. The woman in this group plant and sell seedlings to make a living from the land.

In 1988, Wangari stopped the building of an ultra-modern skyscraper at Uhuru Park in Nairobi. The financing was to come from foreign banks. Kenya was already in a debt crisis with people starving, needing medicine and education. Wangari's voice was loud enough that the foreign banks withdrew their support. President Moi labeled both Wangari and the Green Belt Movement as subversive and publicly stated that Wangari had insects in her head.

In 1998, Wangari brought on President Moi's wrath when she led a fight against the construction of luxury housing development in Karura Forest on the outskirts of Nairobi. They burned bulldozers and tree-cutting equipment. Police were sent to the area, but delegated their tasks to 200 hired men dressed as regular citizens wielding whips, clubs, swords, and bows and arrows. Their match was twelve women from the Green Belt Movement – most of them elderly – armed with tree seedlings. Wangari told the women to plant their trees outside the gate since they didn't want any trouble. As soon as Wangari planted her tree over 100 men came out of the forest and beat her and the women.

Wangari was struck on the head. Wangari was brought to a police station about half a mile away. The police didn't want to handle her complaint. She insisted and signed her complaint with blood from her head wound. She was later brought to Nairobi Hospital where she received stitches and was held under observation for three days.

Wangari has received many awards including: the Nobel Peace Prize (2004), the Goldman Environmental Prize of the Goldman Foundation (1991), The Hunger Project's Africa Prize for Leadership (1991), the UN's Africa Prize for Leadership (1991), the Windstar Award for the environment (1988), the Better World Society Award (1986), the Alternative Nobel Prize and the Right Livelihood Award (1984), and many other honors. Wangari is also listed as a member of UNEP's Global 500 hall of Fame and helped to found the Women's Environmental and Development Organization.

"We have a special responsibility to the ecosystem of the planet. In making sure that other species survive we will be ensuring the survival of our own." Wangari Maathai

LUCH 2005