Wangari Maathai Quotes

From avoiding littering to encouraging local economy, there is a lot each one of us can do that will go a long way in keeping the country's cultural legacy intact.

Building one garden in L.A. - it might be a nice gesture - but it won't make a difference. We have to start to change the culture of the community.

Real, sustainable community change requires the initiative and engagement of community members.

In India, we now see many highly qualified professionals ready to work in the rural hinterland and in their own towns and cities to tackle development issues directly without depending much on the government.

When I first started, it was really an innocent response to the needs of women in rural areas. When we started planting trees to meet their needs, there was nothing beyond that. I did not see all the issues that I have to come to deal with.

If we bring together the right people, communities can flourish and wildlife can survive alongside them.

Programs have to be developed by the people in the community.

Fragmentation is a big part of the problem. You have a city where trash is taken away from the curb every week, and you don't see it any more, and you don't have any sense of where water comes from. So there's no sense of responsibility and accountability and there's also no sense of empowerment for our actions.

Growing up Marley, we wanted anything we put our hands on to be beneficial to the environment and the community.

I've always said we need to build resilience locally.

The government should promote community nurseries of mangrove species and other appropriate tree species chosen under the coastal bio-shield and agro-forestry programmes.

I think we should stop drinking bottled water. There's no need to be drinking it if you're living in western communities. The other thing I would suggest - and I feel it particularly here in Australia, because we have very severe drought - is to be aware of how much you're actually consuming. Right now, it's very rainy, but that doesn't mean we can drink all the water we want. Conserving and constantly thinking, "how much do I really need?" should definitely be part of our vocabulary.

How can you save the world you have not seen if you can't save the community you have seen?

We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it.

I think one of the most important investments an organization like TNC (The Nature Conservancy) can make is in helping build local capacity - supporting the growth of a global network of small community-based entities. Help people who live within critical ecosystems help themselves and their neighbors to design a better future relationship between themselves and their natural resources.

You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.

We're going to have to do a whole lot more, and give nature at least a chance to repair some of the damage we've done.

We are going to have to gather up the fragments of knowledge and responsibilities that have been turned over to governments, corporations, and specialists, and put those fragments back together again in our own minds and in our families and household and neighborhoods.

The planting of trees is the least self-centered of all that we can do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children.

Government can't completely take care of people by making a bunch of promises and programs. Organize your communities

You can push your local communities to adopt more sustainable sources of energy and environmentally-friendly practices.

The future's so random, and so mobile, there's no way you're going to get to your vision of what you want your community to be just by chance alone. I really believe you have to let people know, to use your voice, to say, 'this is what I like about my place, I want to keep it this way, this is what I think can be improved, this is what I disapprove of.' That's the only way you can have a part in shaping the future.

Poverty without a people's government looks like hopelessness, but to see poverty in organized communities is to see relief-in-progress.

Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting.

It is sad that it was necessary that Santa Barbara should be the example that had to bring it to the attention of the American people. What is involved is the use of our resources of the sea and of the land in a more effective way and with more concern for preserving the beauty and the natural resources that are so important to any kind of society that we want for the future. The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.