"For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all"
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The intent is strategic, not inspirational. Maathai is justifying why the Green Belt Movement could never remain a purely environmental project. In Kenya, deforestation wasn’t a natural accident; it was tied to state corruption, cash-crop economics, and the slow erosion of rural livelihoods, especially for women. Planting a tree without confronting those structures becomes performative - a way to feel moral while the incentives that caused the damage keep humming.
Her language is deliberately diagnostic: "causes" versus "symptoms", "root cause" with its botanical echo. It’s a clever rhetorical loop: she borrows the metaphor from the very act she’s describing, letting the ecology explain the politics. The subtext is also a rebuke to NGO culture and to governments that prefer ribbon-cutting to accountability. "Once and for all" isn’t naivete so much as a dare: stop mistaking recurring crises for bad luck when they’re the predictable output of a rigged system.
In a world addicted to quick fixes, Maathai frames environmental work as civic education - and insists that real conservation is inseparable from democracy.
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Maathai, Wangari. (2026, January 15). For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-me-one-of-the-major-reasons-to-move-beyond-150194/
Chicago Style
Maathai, Wangari. "For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-me-one-of-the-major-reasons-to-move-beyond-150194/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-me-one-of-the-major-reasons-to-move-beyond-150194/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.
