women-the unsung heroes of the environment
(this is a wonderful speech by bianca jagger, in germany, to celebrate international women's day)
Women: The Unsung Heroes of the Environment
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The exhibition celebrated twenty one visionary women. I was humbled to be included. These women are from all over the world, from very different disciplines. But they have all made outstanding contributions to the protection of the environment. From Wangari Maathai's pioneering Green Belt Movement, which has helped thousands of communities in Africa and transformed sustainable development, to Jane Goodall's groundbreaking conservation work in Tanzania, to Ursula Sladek's innovative energy entrepreneurship in Germany, to Angela Merkel's leadership as the first woman to head the Federal German Ministry for the Environment, and to become Chancellor of Germany, to Birkel Lemke's campaign in Turkey to prevent gold mining companies from fatally contaminating ecosystems with arsenic: they have all improved lives, and effected substantial change for good.
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What is clear is that, as we waver on the cusp of various global crises, the services women provide to environmental protection become more indispensable every day. More than ever, as we face the challenges of combating climate change, deforestation, the melting of the Arctic sea ice, we will need these women: their skills, their wisdom and their knowledge.
The great tradition of women and the environment
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But there is a long and great tradition of women devoting their lives to the land and the environment. They have sown and tilled fields, bred new species of plants and rediscovered fossilised, extinct ones. They have protected their homelands from destruction and saved rare animals from extinction. They shaped the way their cultures relate to the land.
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Mother earth
The theme of mother, as representing land and earth, is embedded in many traditional cultures, particularly in Latin America. It is a dominant theme in the pre-Columbian Mayan text Popol Vuh. As the Maya scholar Victor Montejo writes, 'concern for the natural world, and the mutual respect this relationship implies, is constantly reinforced by traditional Mayan ways of knowing and teaching. [A] holistic perspective of human collective destiny with other living creatures on earth has a religious expression among indigenous people... often expressed in the figure of mother earth.'
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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/08-12
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