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A film tribute to , a forest icon

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A special video tribute to the indomitable Wangari Maathai, environmentalist, peacemaker and human rights campaigner, was screened at Forest Day 5 during the UN climate change meeting in Durban.

“Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.” ? Wangari Muta Maathai 1940–2011

These words framed the introduction to what was an extremely moving tribute; one of those short films that prickles skin on the back of your neck and tightens your chest with the understanding and appreciation of the mammoth impact for good that one person can have on this planet.

Through many against-the-odds (and sometimes bloody) battles Wangaari Maathai stood as a giant for the protection of forests, grassroots sustainable development, and against the abuse of human rights. This inspiring vignette of her victories for the environment, women and the oppressed, really brought home to me what a remarkable person she was.

Heroine, champion of the downtrodden, teacher, listener, role model, counselor, parliamentarian, advocate, inspiration, and forest icon, Wangari Maathai was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree; the first woman to be appointed professor at University of ; and the first Environmentalist and the first African woman to receive the .

The film features personal testimonies from high profile international figures, interspersed with archival footage of Maathai campaigning for environmental causes and human rights, planting trees with community people and dancing on the balcony of an Oslo hotel on the evening she

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“Her indomitable spirit enabled her to transcend barriers of every kind and description, to inspire the rest of us to walk in her footsteps ,” says in a piece to camera.

“She was involved with struggles for human rights, democracy, and environmental conservation. She was a true leader in those areas, and an absolutely worthy winner of the Nobel Prize,” says Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Kumi Naido of Greenpeace says, “She was not only a visionary, but a pioneer. For a long time, particularly in Africa, there was a struggle to make the link between the environment and development when the two seemed in direct contradiction with each other. But what she was saying through her work and her life was that the two: poverty and environmental sustainability, were two sides of the same coin.”

Rather poignantly, Lilian Wanjiru Njehu of the grassroots Karinga Women’s Group, said of Maathai’s legacy, “The little people, they can change the world.”

The world would certainly be changed for the better if we all walked in Wangari Maathai’s footsteps.

The film was commissioned by the World Agroforestry Centre, the Center for International Forestry Research and the Environment Programme on behalf of the Collaborative Partnerships on Forests, as the opening event for Forest Day 5 on 4 December 2011.

See also, the World Agroforestry Centre’s tribute page to Wangari Maathai: http://blog.worldagroforestry.org/index.php/2011/09/26/wangari-maathai-may-you-rest- in-peace-in-the-shade-of-celestial-forests/

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