AASHE Mourns the Passing of Wangari Maathai
The staff, directors and membership of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) mourn the passing of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai who died yesterday in her home country of Kenya. Dr. Maathai, who was scheduled to give the opening keynote at AASHE 2011: Creating Sustainable Campuses and Communities, had been hospitalized for ovarian cancer in the preceding weeks. We are deeply saddened by the loss of this world leader of sustainable development who worked for decades on eradicating poverty, improving the environment, championing women’s rights, exposing climate injustice and fighting government corruption. She has brilliantly woven together the many strands of sustainability so that we can see and understand the ways that these elements are all necessary for a better future.
After becoming the first east African woman to earn a doctorate (in veterinary anatomy) and while serving as a faculty member at the University of Nairobi, she started the Green Belt Movement which has resulted in more than 40 million trees being planted in east Africa. Her efforts at environmental conservation were coupled with the alleviation of poverty of Africa’s women and led her into Kenyan politics where she was a voice for democracy and the elimination of corruption. Her efforts led to her jailing in more than one instance. She was courageous and determined in all her work.
AASHE had asked her to keynote our conference because her life embodied the conference theme of ‘Creating Sustainable Campuses and Communities.’ One portion of her legacy is the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies at the University of Nairobi. She refers to the mission of the institute in her latest book, Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World. The mission reads: To transfer knowledge and skills on sustainable use of natural resources from academic halls and laboratories to the citizenry in villages and rural communities throughout Africa and beyond, and in doing so encourage transformational leadership grounded and focused on improving peoples livelihoods and sharing cultures of peace.
For all of us at AASHE, we mourn Wangari Maathai in her passing but we celebrate all she has done for all of us, for the world, and for future generations. She has left a legacy that gives us great reason to be thoughtful and joyful and thankful.
Posted: September 26, 2011, 1:12 PM