Hope Is A Verb - Wanjira Mathai- A new story for Africa

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Meet Wanjira Mathai, the Managing Director for Africa at the World Resources Institute who is empowering communities to restore landscapes and local economies through Restore Local, a project that is creating a new story for Africa one acre at a time. In this inspiring conversation, Wanjira shares her story of growing up in Kenya and how she "basks in the light" of her mother, Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Green Belt Movement. This episode is about legacy, people power and the capacity we all have to change the narrative and heal our planet. FIND OUT MORE: 2023 TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/wanjira_mathai_the_tree_growing_movement_restoring_africa_s_vital_landscapes?language=en Restore Local: https://www.wri.org/initiatives/restore-local AFR 100: https://afr100.org/ The Audacious Project https://www.audaciousproject.org/ Green Belt Movement https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/ Twitter: @WanjiraMathai This episode of Hope Is A Verb was hosted by Angus Hervey, cofounder of Future Crunch and Amy Davoren-Rose, creative director. The soundtrack for this podcast is "Rain" composed and performed by El Rey Miel from their upcoming album "Sea the Sky." Audio Sweetening by Anthony Badolato- Ai3 Audio and Voice. We would like to acknowledge that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Warring People. These conversations are inspired by our charity partners and our Humankind Project that celebrates the people who are stitching our world back together. You can contact us at: [e-mail] Transcripts will be available on our website soon.

Hi, welcome to Hope is a Verb, a podcast from Future Crunch that explores what it takes to change the world through conversations with the people that are making it happen. I'm Amy. I'm Gus, and these are the unknown heroes who are mending our planet, stitching together a better future, and showing us the best of what it is to be human. It is about Africa as a solutions hub. Africa as providing key solutions to the climate crisis. And I am so energized by this because I've spent so much of my climate life talking about the challenges, talking about the risks, and very little time considering the opportunities.

There are always different ways to tell the stories of our world. The best ways are those that allow more than one story to be true. For Wanjira Matai, Director for Africa at the World Resources Institute, there are two sides to the climate change story. One in which Africa is home to 27 of the 40 most vulnerable countries to climate change and the emerging story of Africa as a place where many of the solutions to the climate crisis might be found. Perhaps the most interesting plot twists can be found in Wanjira's personal story. Her mother, Wangara Maitai, was the first African woman and environmentalist to win

the Nobel Peace Prize for her leadership of the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots initiative by women across Africa to restore the environment by planting trees. Today, Wanjira is continuing that work in her own unique way, empowering local communities across the continent to create a new story for the future. Wanjira, thank you so much for joining us today. It's lovely to have you here. Oh, thank you for having me. Delighted It's lovely to have you here. Thank you for having me. Delighted to be with you. Welcome to the podcast, Wanderer.

I wonder if we could start by asking you if there is a news story somewhere in the world right now that's giving you hope. Wow, giving me hope because we're surrounded by so much that is not so hopeful. I would say right now, my most hopeful story or signal is coming out of Africa. We're in the middle of planning for the Africa Climate Summit. And it's rare that we have a summit on Africa that is so optimistic. It is about Africa as a solutions hub, Africa as providing key solutions to the climate crisis. And I am so energized by this because I've spent so much of my climate life

talking about the challenges, talking about the risks, especially to the most vulnerable, and very little time considering the opportunities. And this is what we've been doing for the last few weeks, thinking about what it means that Africa has the healthiest lung in the planet, in the Congo Basin. And what does it mean that Africa has so many of the critical minerals needed for the renewable energy sector and what that could mean for the transformation of the continent, the dignity of African people, economic empowerment, and therefore building lasting resilience. energized by those narratives. And I really look forward to being part of this shift that otherwise was a very tiring year after year of talking about accountability and trust. And it just feels like taking back the narrative is extremely empowering.

I can feel that. All you've done there is change the language a little bit about something, as you said, that you've been discussing and talking about for a long time, but the energy and the whole conversation around it feels different. Where do you think that that narrative shift has come from? That's a good question, Angus. I think COVID was a very humbling moment for most vulnerable countries. It was a moment where they were faced with an existential crisis that came from God knows where they didn't expect it. And then all of a sudden vaccines are not available to you, but they're available to others. And the inequity there and just the vulnerability that left most of our leaders feeling,

I hear them articulating it a lot now. What they learned from moments like that was that we really have to build lasting resilience. And lasting resilience will not come out of the goodness of someone else's heart. It will come out of what we can do for ourselves. And that, I think I would say the president of Kenya has, he was elected last year, and that has suddenly come from him. He's chairing African Heads of State Climate Committee within the African Union. And that narrative has emerged from his voice as one of the heads of state leading on climate. And it's been very refreshing to see how it's gained traction

and it's sort of settling. It's resonating with so many because of the frustrations of this delayed 100 million a year for climate adaptation. Climate finance has been a big sticking point, a big indicator of trust, especially for the most vulnerable countries that are facing more and more extreme events, climate events, and not having the finance to take care of it.

Many of these countries now in debt distress. And so trying to find that fiscal space to do what they need to do. So there's a confluence of issues that has brought about very positive narrative for Africa. brought about very positive narrative for Africa. We'd love to find out a little more about your story. You were born and raised in Kenya. Are there any particular moments from your childhood that stand out as shaping the person that you are today? Well, you know, it's so interesting you ask that.

It's always in retrospect, right? When you look back and you think, okay, what could this have been? I was raised by my mother who everything she did, we were part of. I was part of her efforts to re-green and wherever there was a tree planting event, we were there planting with her. But I think one of the ones that I always remember is we lived in a relatively small compound in a very vibrant neighborhood of Nairobi. And in that compound, there wasn't much space to plant trees, but we did. We planted trees

everywhere. And I thought, where did we find the space to plant all these trees? But it was something that my mother, she just loved green vegetation. And so she surrounded herself and therefore us with green all the time. And when there was no more room to plant trees, she planted shrubs, flowering shrubs. We planted something all the time. Birthdays, Earth Day, you know, Christmas Day. It was just always you had to plant something. But I also remember many years later, people would tell me that when people are looking for our house, they would be told, just follow the trees. Just go where the trees are. And you could see this house much later, 20 and 30 years later, it's just surrounded.

It's like a little oasis in the middle of this very densely populated neighborhood that most people felt there's nowhere to plant trees here. It was very much a part of my growing up, this idea that nature is the source of everything good. You know, we have to protect it. We have to restore it. And actually, if you plant fruit trees, you get fruit sooner or later. So the Green Belt Movement was very much a part of my growing up. She started it. And what that became was very hands-on for her. She was involved in every aspect of the movement. We read a beautiful quote from you that said, you bask in your mother's light. And it's just such a beautiful way to frame this idea of legacy.

Can you tell us what did you mean by that? My mother passed almost now 11 years ago. And before that, I had worked with her for almost 10 years, every single day. I consider that a rare gift that I spent every day with her, her last 10 years, what I consider a really positive time for her. She was really enjoying a lot of international attention for this grassroots movement that was transforming landscapes, but also lives. And very few people understood how profound that movement was then,

not only as an environmental movement, but also as a civic movement. And then in 2004, when she won the Nobel Peace Prize, it was the first time they had given the Peace Prize to an environmentalist. And that actually, it evoked a lot of questions. What does the environment have to do with peace? And if you go and read any of the articles during the announcement of her prize, you will see that raised quite a bit. And even in Norway, when she went for the prize, that's a question she had to answer. What does the environment have to do with peace? And there was also pushback on the committee for having selected an environmentalist for a Peace Prize. This from 2004 to 2011, when she was unpacking, it became her life's work after the Nobel Peace Prize to explain to the rest of the world how

peace and the environment were connected. And seeing her do that, the genius of unpacking that on the platform of the Green Belt movement was unbelievable. It was really, really beautiful. And I considered that a rare glimpse into the genius of the work because I knew it intellectually, but I hadn't quite been that close to her to work with it. And then I also appreciated her passion. It was insane how passionate she was about this work, how much she believed it deeply. Many of us work in areas, I work on cities, I work on energy. I believe it, but I'm not that intricately connected to the energy sector. I only know what I know from what I read. She lived and was inspired. And when she talked about what inspired her work, she would go back to her childhood. So all her life, all her life, this was what she really believed. And it came through the authenticity, the commitment, the passion, the commitment and the patience with all of it, right? And that, I have to say, when people would ask me then, Amy,

what's it like? When she passed away in 2011, sadly, we, you know, the Greenbelt movement was left rather less because she had been such a central part of that leadership. And people would ask me all the time, you know, what's it like living in your mother's shadow? I found that question. I could have just said, oh, well, it's hard. Or I could have been just, I could have answered anyhow. But I felt so energized by the fact that I didn't associate at all with the shadow.

I was so lucky to have been part of 10 years of her life every day. The gift that I had to work with her and to be part of that and to laugh and enjoy. And she was my mother. So it was also a really connecting time. I was nothing but grateful and delighted to have been part of this legacy as we move forward. I saw it as basking in her light. So I would always say, I'm not standing or sitting or walking in her shadow. I feel like I'm basking in her light. And in every way I would say that, and I would feel as I do now, just, oh, yeah. It's like no other way I would explain the gift that I was given.

And so I feel that in every sense that it's a gift of light that I had. It's very interesting that that movement from people would speak about shadow and you would feel it as light. That also sounds very similar to the way that you opened here when you said that the climate summit has been talking about fear and anxiety, but actually feeling around it is opportunity and excitement. And it's interesting

that there are those two parallels. Perhaps this is just the way that you operate and the way that you think. I have a question for you. Your mother was such a huge figure, Nobel Peace Prize, and a lot of people who occupied that kind of role in the public imagination, they almost become saints. But of course, she was a real person. And of course, you were a real person too. I wonder, was there an inclination to rebel against it or to go in a different direction first and then come back to it?

It did take me in different directions. I remember after high school thinking, okay, now what do I want to do in college? My mom went to school in the US. So she also had some ambitions for us to study in the US. So I ended up in upstate New York at a small college, William Smith. And while I was there, I was very clear that I would do everything but what my mother did because it was, you know, she had done it. I almost felt like you don't copy. Somebody else has done it. You go and do something else. But I also was under the impression that you sort of study what you're good at. So I was a very strong scientist. And again, it was influenced by my mother, but I didn't quite see it that way. So I said, okay, I'll major in biology. Well, so did my mother. I actually thought scientists usually go on to do medicine. So I signed up for a pre-med program. And I thought that was nicely separate

from what my mother had done. And I was going to track my own path and go that way. And then I studied and decided actually medicine wasn't what I wanted to do. And my advisors, thankfully, guided me to public health. And when I finished, I started working on a disease eradication program at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta. And I loved it. It was investigative work on diseases that were affecting my part of the world. These were largely neglected diseases that were not fatal at all, but a lot of them caused blindness. They caused debilitation, but they were not known. Whenever I would come back home to Atlanta and tell my friends, oh, I just got back from Cameroon and I saw, you know,

cases of guinea worm. they're like cases of what? Nobody knew these diseases. They were completely unheard of. And here was President Carter who had decided he would work specifically on those issues and eradicate these diseases. I thought that was amazing. I spent a lot of time getting deeper and deeper into the epidemiology and the monitoring and doing all of that. And then after five years or so, I decided to do another degree. I ended up going into business school because I was fascinated by the success of marketing in convincing us to purchase or influencing our purchasing behavior. And actually, public health was terrible at convincing people to change behavior. We were trying to get people to filter their water.

And then, of course, you remember with HIV and malaria, you need to sleep under the bed net. You need to use protection. All of these behavioral changes, public health practitioners were terrible at. But yet, I could go to a supermarket and there are 10 toothbrushes and I find myself trying to decide which toothbrush to buy. And they somehow, somebody has differentiated a toothbrush. So I decided, okay, there's something to be learned. So anyway, I went to business school. I enjoyed it tremendously because it was a completely different area of work. I was an oddball in the whole business class because a lot of those

people were finance people and they were people who are running businesses. And here I was talking about how do I communicate about health? So then I finished. And of course, I had no intention of going into business. So after that, I decided to take a break. I said, okay, now with this business degree and with my six years in public health, let me pack my bag and go back to Kenya and just spend a year, relax, think about what I want to do. And while in Kenya, of course, I was home and my mother would say, why don't you just help me with this proposal? Help me read this. Why don't you come and meet these people? They're so interesting. Why don't you? So slowly she sucked me into her world and I just completely got immersed.

I got immersed in the fact that there was such a big difference. Here was this work that was going on in Kenya that was profound, but didn't have the sort of resources that I had at the Carter Center. So I remember even saying, we need a website in this organization. We need a way for people to reach you without having to call you. And I remember going and actually taking a course in how to make a website. I ended up really immersing into the work of the Greenbelt movement. And I was completely enamored by the profundity of the work, just the simplicity of how that transformation was being done, the level of understanding, the brilliance. A lot of work was being done in local languages. This was the first time I had seen, not even in my work at the Carter Center,

except for French and English, we never really translated things to very local languages. So I was really amazed by many little pieces of the work. And I continued to just get deeper and deeper into it. But when my deadline to leave, the beginning of October, I said, okay, now at the end of this month, it was 2004, I will go back. But I say October very clearly, 2004, because on October 10th, 2004, the Nobel Peace Prize was announced. I couldn't possibly tell my mother, I'm going to leave now. And the world has descended on this small organization. It was back to back. I remember we had phones just all over the place,

dying and coming back. And she was on calls almost for 10 hours straight, just answering interviews. So then I told my mother, well, then after the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December, I think it's a good time then for me to leave because things will have died down. But all to say, it never died down. And it became essentially a global demand on her time to represent this issue as the first environmentalist. So I never left.

And that's how I essentially got into the movement. And when she passed away in 2011, I found myself thinking that's probably why I left the US to come home. That's probably why all these things happened. And I'm in this place by design. And now I need to step into it and just move. And I felt completely empowered to do her legacy justice because I had been given that gift. So there's been a number of twists and turns since then, obviously, and some incredible achievements in your own right. You're now the Managing Director for the World Resources Institute for Africa. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about what you're doing now, starting with the Restore Local project.

WRI essentially is an organization that is anchored in research and has made three bets. That if we work on energy access and energy transition, if we work on cities as an ecosystem for change, and if we work on landscape restoration and the protection of critical ecosystems, we can bring about inclusive transformation for people and landscapes. In Africa, that inclusive transformation for people and planet is at the core of what we must do to build resilience, to build prosperity, to essentially ensure dignity for African people. to build prosperity, to essentially ensure dignity for African people. And so Restore Local is a small part of a larger restoration movement. In 2017, the African Union decided that Africa's contribution to the global restoration effort contribute to 100 million hectares across the African continent. That was coded in a movement called AFR 100. Actually, interestingly, we beat the 100 million hectare target.

And today we have 132 million hectares committed by African government. What does that look like in action? Where is the restoration opportunity? Who will do it? Have you made a plan? And Restore Local is an example of an initiative that is really grounding the AFR 100 mission to restore landscapes in three countries, in three landscapes, we're calling them. The Rift Valley in Kenya, we have the Rusizi River Basin, which is a

multi-country landscape. It goes from DRC, comes into Rwanda, and then in Ghana, we have the cocoa belt. For this scale of work, you cannot do it at a high level. It has to be hyper-local. Farmers have to be involved in restoration. And typically, farmers are very difficult for the banking sector to work with. They're considered unbankable. But actually, if you don't find ways to invest in farmers and the very local communities, you cannot achieve restoration because they are the ones who know how to do it. They are the custodians of landscapes and you cannot go around it. And if we're going to invest in the hyperlocal, we don't just throw money at them and turn around,

but we invest in mentoring and coaching them. So Restore Local also has a pillar of work that is about what do you need to be able to succeed in your restoration? Some people actually need to be able to structure their businesses. They need a loan to be able to get moving. So there's all sorts of different platforms and tools that help to prepare. There are incubators, there are accelerators, and all those tools will be brought to Bayer Bristol Local to help make sure that we can catalyze the movement and what we are calling restoration champions,

those who can move the movement forward, that they have the resources they need to build their muscle, to build their capacity. And then we need to make sure we know where this work is being done using the best technology out there, drones, GIS, geospatial, et cetera. So that's Restore Local in a nutshell. It's betting on the hyperlocal, essentially saying restoration can only happen if we catalyse the grassroots.

I'm really interested in this idea of restoration champions because it just brings home that even within this huge scale of work, there are all of these incredible stories of people and small organisations that are doing incredible things every day. Are there any that really stand out for you? Absolutely. There's several. One that I know well, obviously, the Greenbelt movement that basically took this exact idea that you have women who are custodians of food production. They are geniuses in how to manage land. The Greenbelt movement essentially said to women farmers,

just the same wisdom you have for farming, use that for tree production. It essentially aggregated them into groups, supported them and purchased, this was really important, purchased the seedlings. For every seedling these women planted that survived, they got a compensation, a financial compensation. It wasn't a big incentive, but that incentivized volume. That if you planted hundreds of thousands of trees, it added up to quite a bit of money. That organizing was for me really inspiring. I've also been inspired by young people setting up businesses that are income generating, job creating, but they are nature based and they are contributing to the movement.

Listening to you speak, this is true people power. When people talk about people power, this is it. And the link that I can see between your work and your mother's work is this idea of giving people the tools to mend our planet rather than stepping in and doing it for them. Why is this so important? Because of the scale and scope. It's no other way to do it but to crowdsource. It's just so much needed. The highest restoration potential in the world is in Africa. 700 million hectares of land is available for restoration. That's a lot of land. You can't do it yourself. You have to get others to do it. The scope and scale of the intervention needed

to turn the tide requires that we work in partnership, that we catalyze others, and that we are smart and we invest in those who know it best. Local interventions have to be led by local communities. In and around all of this, as a South African, there's a word that's coming to the front here. Amy's talked about people power. You've spoken a lot there about empowerment, but there's a South African word called Ubuntu. And I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about that. I love that word. I use it all the time. And then I always have to remember that it is South Africa. I love it. It is, you know, the idea that we are connected in our common humanity. We rise. I am because you are. And if I'm suffering, you're suffering. It's so beautiful, that concept, and that ought

to be the uniting element in why we care. COVID taught us it was in our best interest to care about what was happening everywhere else. I am because you are. I want to talk a little bit more about where things are at now. We met in Vancouver at TED, and the reason you were at TED is because you recently awarded this $100 million grant from the Audacious Project, incredible achievement. Also, your TED Talk will probably be out by the time this episode is released, and I'd encourage anyone who's listening to go check that out.

We will put that in the show notes. This money, it's a big sum of money. What does it mean specifically for your mission with Restore Local? Yeah, it's a big sum of money. What does it mean specifically for your mission with Restore Local? Yeah, it's a lot of money to do some really incredible work. It gives us an opportunity to really demonstrate what is needed. We have estimated that what the restoration movement for AFR 100 needs is $2 billion. We need to raise $2 billion to really get restoration going. $500 million of that is going to be philanthropic and the rest will be private sector money. So trying to work on the entire ecosystem of what this means. Restore Local

gives us an opportunity to demonstrate what's possible because it sometimes seems so vast. The scope of this is so massive. But if we can demonstrate in these three landscapes, in the very hyper-local, as the champions of restoration, then we can actually catalyze the rest of the movement. It is a critical piece of the success of restoration that we get this right, that we invest the resources that we need. We've always said that we needed more money to show all these pieces, that we need the policy incentives, that we need to invest in restoration champions in meaningful ways and in the right scale and scope of them. We can do that now. That's a gift. We're so grateful for the Audacious community

to have invested and believed in this idea. And we look forward to the unfolding in the months and years to come. Fantastic. We're really excited to see where it's going and what you're going to be doing with it. I want to ask if it's okay to dream a little bit here. If you imagine a future, let's call it 10 years from now,

it's 2033, and 130 million hectares of land across Africa have now been restored. Can you describe to us what you see? And most importantly, what does it mean to people on the ground? Oh, what do I see? One of the things that this is all about is that healthy ecosystems, Most importantly, what does it mean to people on the ground? Oh, what do I see? One of the things that this is all about is that healthy ecosystems allow rivers to flow. So my first image is always waterfalls and rivers, because when you replenish landscapes, you replenish their ability to serve as water catchments, which is the most important.

They serve as the homes of critical biodiversity. So I see rich biodiversity. I see thriving bird life. I see a continent that is able to feed itself. That's because you replenish landscapes and you replenish the capacity of land to produce food. I see people not desperate to enter into forests and exploit for timber. I see a vibrant timber sector that is not dependent on indigenous forests, that is actually thriving in its own right as a commercial crop.

The country is able to sustain its citizens. People are living dignified lives. They're not living on the edge. Nobody is living in abject poverty. That total transformation, I believe, will come when we have a healthy environment, because we know a healthy environment supports healthy people. Wanjira, we've spoken a lot about legacy in this conversation and I'm interested, what do you want your legacy to be? I spend a lot of time with the next generation, the young activists. They have great aspirations. They are brilliant. Africa is a very young continent. So I would love to have created a forum, a vibrant forum for youth engagement, youth to feel that they can do whatever they want. They can go into politics and become strong leaders. They can step into any space and feel empowered because of the work that we are doing, because we started the Wangai Mathai Foundation particularly to do that, to say young people should be inspired by the capacity, especially African young people,

that they are brilliant, that they have what it takes to do anything they want to do, because they live in a pretty awesome place and they are the offspring of giants. Wondura, one last question for you. When you hear the word hope, what does that mean to you? Hope is optimism to me. I always feel hopeful because if we're not hopeful, what's left? I am propelled by hope. I am inspired by hope and I wake up every

morning just knowing that a better way is possible and I'm part of that so I plow on hope for me is the optimism I need A better way is possible. Thanks to people like Wanjira and thousands of others like her on the African continent and around the world who are creating a more resilient and prosperous future, one acre at a time. To find out more about Wanjira, you can check out her recent TED Talk,

which we'll put in the podcast notes, along with links to the Restore Local project. We'd like to thank our paying subscribers for making this podcast and this conversation possible. If you'd like to find out more about supporting us by becoming a paid subscriber, check out futurecrunch.com. We would like to acknowledge that this podcast is recorded in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung people. There are a lot of podcasts out there. It means a lot

to us that you chose this one. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to support Hope as a Verb, please subscribe and leave a review. And if you want to reach out directly, send us an email at hope at futurecrunch.com.au. Thanks for listening. Thank you.