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TLC Executive Director's MessagePlanting Trees and Promoting PeaceMay 2006 I recently read an interview with 2004 Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan woman who founded the Green Belt Movement, which began in 1977 as a jobs program to pay impoverished women to grow and plant tree seedlings. Under Professor Maathai’s leadership, the Green Belt Movement has planted more than 30 million trees. Professor Maathai, who serves as Kenya’s assistant minister for environment and natural resources, is the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. When asked about the relationship between planting trees and peace, she responded, “When you look at many of the conflicts that we have, people fight over resources. It is either because the resources have become extremely degraded and therefore they are very scarce or they have disappeared and people get into a conflict.” Reading Professor Maathai’s words made me think about Triangle Land Conservancy’s work and our impact on the local community. Take the example of TLC’s tree-planting project at La Grange Riparian Reserve on the Deep River near Carbonton in Chatham County (see “20,000 New Trees Convert Fescue to Forest at La Grange”). Last month, we planted 20,000 mixed hardwood saplings to protect water quality and improve wildlife habitat. While TLC’s work at La Grange is a drop in the bucket compared to Professor Maathai’s Green Belt Movement, both tree-planting projects are grounded in the same reality: that conservation of natural resources improves our quality of life, and degradation of resources creates conflict. North Carolinians see this playing out across the Triangle. Decreasing water quality and the impact of dry weather on our water supply have become everyday concerns. We experienced a once-every-hundred-years drought event a few years ago, and the eastern part of the Triangle is currently suffering through another one. Some local people are literally fighting over access to dwindling water supplies. Planting trees may not be a panacea for our community’s ills, but it is a good start. In Professor Maathai’s words, “If we were to accept as a human family to manage our resources more sustainably, more responsibly, if we were to share them more equitably, we would be able to reduce conflict.” Go to www.greenbeltmovement.org to learn more about Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement. Kevin Brice, TLC Executive Director
TLC President's Message Archive
February 2008 Time to celebrate
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