Planting the future

April 17, 2006 12:34 PM

Wangari Maathai discusses saving the environment in Nigeria
and how religion influenced its destruction and subesquent efforts at saving it. A beautiful portrait of a beautiful determined woman doing her part to help save the planet.
posted by specialk420 (4 comments total)

Is this the woman who was criticized when she received the Nobel price a couple of years ago, something about HIV/AIDS conspiracies or something?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:29 PM on April 17, 2006

She believes HIV-1 was created by the US for biological warfare:

"Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys (since) time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.

"Us black people are dying more than any other people in this planet," Ms Maathai told a press conference in Nairobi a day after winning the prize for her work in human rights and reversing deforestation across Africa.

"It's true that there are some people who create agents to wipe out other people. If there were no such people, we could have not have invaded Iraq," she said.

"We invaded Iraq because we believed that Saddam Hussein had made, or was in the process of creating agents of biological warfare," said Ms Maathai.

"In fact it (the HIV virus) is created by a scientist for biological warfare," she added.

Source.
posted by docgonzo at 7:01 PM on April 17, 2006

Yeah, but she pulled back from that. From a 2005 interview:

AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel many feel that it is a biological agent that was unleashed to destroy black people in Africa?

WANGARI MAATHAI: I don't know of anyone who really believes that. I don't know of anyone who believes that. Most of us don't know. And part of the responsibility that we have is to educate people so that they are not given misinformation, and there is a lot of misinformation that goes around about the disease, as you know.

posted by j.s.f. at 9:02 AM on April 18, 2006

Not exactly what you'd call a clear denunication of her earlier delusion.
posted by docgonzo at 9:18 AM on April 18, 2006