Green Belt Movement

Description

The Green Belt Movement is a grassroots environmental conservation organization in Kenya that empowers communities, especially women, to conserve nature and improve their livelihoods.

Its programs cover reforestation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, water harvesting, gender-based advocacy and building sustainable livelihoods. Tree planting is the entry point for its wider work on environmental management, community empowerment and civic education. It coordinates a national network of women’s groups that plant trees and carry out conservation and community development work across Kenya.

The organization also advocates internationally for environmental policy that protects natural forests and community rights, including in sub-Saharan Africa and the Congo Basin. It has affiliated international bodies in North America and Europe that support its work and fundraising.

Wangari Maathai, later a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 under the National Council of Women of Kenya. Since then its network has planted tens of millions of trees and trained tens of thousands of women in forestry, food processing, bee-keeping and other trades that support their livelihoods while protecting the environment.