To those who have: let us not waste
Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai on living sustainably.
Salazar: It’s a great honor to speak with you today, Dr. Maathai. What is sustainable development?
Maathai: It is that we should use Earth’s resources to meet our own needs today, but insure that the future generations will also be able to meet their needs. That’s what that word “sustainable” means.
So when we say sustainable development, we say that we want to advance, we want to lead a good quality of life, but we do not want to do it at the expense of the future generations.
Salazar: But what does that look like? Can you give me an example of sustainable development in action?
Maathai: When I think of a country like Kenya, for example, I was very concerned about the depletion of vegetation, and especially forests. Fortunately, trees are renewable. You can cut a tree, but at the same time you can plant another one.
I was also concerned about soil erosion. When you cut trees, you expose the soil, and the soil is taken away by wind or by water, and the land becomes very infertile, or it becomes desert. Once the land is desert, you cannot grow crops, and quite often you can die of hunger or starvation because you have soil that does not give us good yield. It’s very important that we don’t lose this resource. Therefore, we should plant trees and create trenches to insure that the soil remains on the land and does not get carried away by water or by wind.
Water is another resource that needs to be protected. We all know that water comes to us from the rains. But when the water goes into the ground, it nourishes the soil, and some of that water goes into the underground reservoirs. Later on, it comes back to us in the form of streams and springs and rivers. If you have cut trees, or you have removed the vegetation from the ground, when the rains come, the water does not go into the ground to replenish the underground reservoirs. Instead, water runs off into the streams and lakes and oceans, and carries with it our good, fertile topsoil.
In many parts of the world, there is not enough water. And yet, it is the resource without which we cannot survive on this planet. So sustainable management, or sustainable development, means that we do not overuse this resource. It means that we use it wisely even when it comes to us through the top, that we do not waste it, that we use it with respect because, indeed, there is not enough of it for everybody.
Salazar: What happens when people don’t use resources sustainably?
Maathai: I want to invite people to think about any war, or any conflict, whether it is in a neighborhood, or whether it is in a country, at the national level, or even at the global level. You will notice that people have conflicts over resources.
It may be that they are fighting over grazing ground. In our part of the world in Africa, it is quite possible, very quickly, for people who are pastoralist and people who farm to fight over land because the land has become very degraded. There is no more grass for the animals, so the pastoralists tend to take their animals into areas where there are farming communities, and quite often a conflict ensues.
In other areas, people are fighting over water. Sometimes there is only one river, and some people want to use that water, excluding others, and conflict will ensue. Or people have dug wells, and they’ run dry when the land becomes very degraded and the underground reservoirs are not being replenished.
Whether it is land that is very degraded, or it is water, people fight. And you can think of any wars, right now, that are going on in the world. It is usually a competition between people who feel that they are strong, so they can take the natural resources and control them themselves at the expense of other people. Or sometimes people feel that they want to exclude others. They don’t want to share.
Salazar: So it’s important to learn not only how to manage our resources, but also how to share them?
Maathai: This is very, very important: sharing those resources equitably. That means making sure that you don’t exclude people, that you don’t marginalize people, that you don’t become greedy and decide that some people will not have a share of the resources. Because, quite often, people who are marginalized, who are frustrated, who are oppressed, they become angry. They become frustrated and they undermine our concept of security and our peace. And, so that’s why we say that it’s very important for us to share those resources equitably.
Only in a country, in a region, where the rights of people are respected, the rights of minorities are respected, the rights of women are respected, the rights of children are respected, that is the area, that is the country, or that is the region where the equitable sharing of resources is likely to happen. That can only happen in a democratic space.
And that is why we say that sustainable management of resources, democratic governance that respects rights, justice, and equity, and peace are three pillars for any state that wants to be stable. You cannot be stable, you cannot enjoy peace and security, if you do not nurture those three pillars deliberately and consciously.
Salazar: What are some ways in which we as individuals can nuture these “three pillars” of peace and security?
Maathai: The planet does not have an unlimited amount of resources. So if some parts of the world take a lot of resources from the planet, it means that other people will not have enough. And that will not create peace in the world.
In Japanese, there is a word called “mottainai.” It is a concept that comes from Buddhism.
It means: use resources with respect. Use resources without wastage. And that’s one message that I think that America, Japan, and other industrialized countries can utilize.
Use “mottainai” in their daily lives so that they do not waste resources just because there is so much near them. I know that, here in America, there are poor people. So I say to those who have: let us not waste. Let us recycle. Let us even repair.
And, definitely, let us share.
Salazar: Dr. Maathai, thank you.
