Cobertura
Especial Wangari
Maatthai at UN: New
York, March 4, 2005. FIRE/Women´s Media Pool Two
renowned women peace activists met for the first time to join hands in an
historic message of peace and the environment today at the 49th Session of
the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) also known as "Beijing +
10". Wangari
Maathai of Kenya, and winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, joined
Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala, and 1992 Nobel Laureate to address a
standing room only crowd at the 49th Session of the Commission
on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York at the United Nations to
celebrate the Platform for Action of the IV world Conference on Women in
Beijing, 1995. Matthai
told the crowd that linking peace and the environment are critical to
world peace and sustainable development, that along with democracy they
serve as three pillars of peace or like three legs on a traditional
African stool. ¨We cannot
have peace without these three pillars,¨which must be firmly grounded in
order to have peace and development.
¨Matthai added, ¨We should invest more in cultures of peace, in
preventing war, because once wars start, it is very difficult to stop
them, they are very destructive. So
we should invest in peace rather than in war.
and one way to invest in peace is to take care of the environment,
to manage our resources in a responsible, sustainable way.
to share these resources equitably. As
part of today´s activity, Matthai, the Nobel Prize 2004 winner received a
report and multimedia presentation of the results of the grassroots
campaign “Plant a Tree for Peace,” launched globally on the day
Maathai received the award, International Human Rights Day. For the first
time in history, and environmentalist received the Nobel Award. It was
also the first time an African women was awarded the Nobel prize, and she
received it because she has headed a movement that has planted millions of
trees. After
the event, Matthai made a statement to FIRE to broadcast on the 8th of
March for International Women`s Day, calling on women of the world to keep
on planting trees for peace, to continue the grassroots campaign. The
launching of the earlier “Plant a Tree for Peace” Campaign took place
during IUCN´s General Assembly and Forum in Thailand last November, 2004,
by the Women´s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and the
Gender Program of the World Conservation Union (UICN) who issued the
global call for women to plant trees for peace to celebrate with Maathai
and her movement. Accompanying the call, Feminist International Radio
Endeavour(FIRE), the Costa Rica based first women´s internet radio
station in the world, distributed a press release in support of the
Campaign. So
many reports came back to FIRE, and such beautiful pictures and
testimonies portraying families, school children, corporations, feminist
organizations, university programs, community and commercial radio
stations, individuals and groups of friends, that FIRE decided to
disseminate the results in a multimedia format to be sent back to all
participants from Armenia, Israel, Costa Rica, the United States and
Kenya, among others. The
first CD ROM was personally given to Wangari today at the United Nations. The
CD ROM report features the first trees planted the Campaign in Thailand on
the 25th of November at the grounds of IUCN´s Asia office in
Bangkok by women from Asia, Latin America, Africa and United States. It
also features Kenyan women who created a Peace Garden, and launched a
Sustainable Peace Tree Project in a village in the Meru District of Kenya.
That day, a group 25 women planted 50 trees in a “Peace Garden” or “Peace
Trees Corner” at the edge of a forest where they gather firewood for
their livelihood, as reported to FIRE by Karambu Ringera, a Kenyan
activist who organized the event. On
another corner of the planet, in Costa Rica, several groups joined the
campaign by planting trees on their grounds, including the University for
Peace, La Salle University, the Technological Institute of Costa Rica, a
group of women´s organizations, the Tropical Sierra Foundation, and
others. The
University for Peace in El Rodeo, Costa Rica, planted 24 trees with 50
international students, along with staff and administrators on December 10th,
which in addition to being International Human Rights Day, was also the 24th
anniversary of that educational institution.
The ceremony included readings and statements by a variety of
participants, and also a poem, written and read by Edith Natukunda of
Africa that said “Asante Baba!” (Thank you, Sister) to honor Wangari
Maathai. Likewise,
feminist organizations in Costa Rica donated a “Reina de la Noche”
(Queen of the Night) tree which was planted on December 10th on
the grounds of the Gender Equity office of
the Costa Rican Technological Institute in the city of Cartago.
In
addition, FIRE staff planted a “Malinche” tree in the backyard of its
office/studio in rural Ciudad Colón in honor of Wangari Maathai and
International Human Rights Day. The
Tropical Sierra Foundation planted trees with the children of the El Rodeo
School in Ciudad Colón. The
Foundation also signed a commitment with the Costa Rican milk producing
company, Dos Pinos Corporation, in which the company promised to finance
the planting of trees and fund an irrigation system for their maintenance
along the Siquiares River in San José. In
Puerto Rico on December 13, producer Norma Valle interviewed FIRE for the
national radio program “Agenda de Hoy” (Today´s Agenda) on the
University Radio at the University of Puerto Rico, and called on people to
give trees as Christmas presents, both to honor Wangari Maathai´s work
and to contribute with a personal action to counteract deforestation in
the island and in the world. Following the call, the owner of the
Puerto Rican agricultural and ecological enterprise, “Plantas de
Caparra”, contacted by FIRE and also interviewed by Valle, shared with
the audience the kinds of native trees to plant for the Campaign during
Christmas. The
Armenian Tree Project in that country joined the Campaign, pledging to
plant one million trees in 2006. In
the USA, graduate students in the International & Intercultural
Communications program at the University of Denver organized a ceremony
that involved planting a tree in a pot, and invited people to come to
celebrate the Nobel award by decorating the tree, and committed to
planting it on the grounds of the University once spring arrives in that
part of the world. Deforestation
and desertification are serious problems in many countries.
Each minute, 40 hectares (99 acres) of forest are destroyed around
the world. The
UN meeting of delegates at the CSW with Wangari Mathaai was sponsored by
WEDO, IUCN and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). For
more information go to: |