According to Maathai (2005), deforestation affects people in Kenya due to environmental damage as the resources become scarce. People lack firewood and fences and fruit trees to meet the nutritional needs of local people, lack of clean drinking water, and lack of shelter and income to support children's education and household needs. The cause of these is due to tree cutting that leads to soil erosion and dryness of local aquifers used for drinking water. Women are the most affected because they hold essential responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families in Africa (Erdős, 2019).
The green belt movement founded by Maathai-a non-governmental environmental organization was created to aims at equity, justice, poverty eradicator, ecological conservation and Women empowerment in rural Kenya to plant trees and discourages deforestation. Through new found network, social empowerment was grown in women and helps them to assist each other in time of crisis. In (2003-2007) Dr. Maathai was able to influence Kenya and outside with policies of environmental conservation. Reforestation restores primary sources of income, fuel for cooking, and controls soil erosion—the green belt movement advocate for accountability and more significant democratic space from national leaders (Smulders, 2016) .The green belt movement connected the global and the local alongside with its matters of justice.
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Green belt movement and Lillian Masebenza address the issue of environmental pollution and the oppression of women in rural Kenya from accessing education land and resources by using direct action of tree planting and give education to the community. Reforestation provided solutions to these problems, and the basic needs of the local population have been met (Wagner, 2016) .Decrease in soil erosion has been enhanced due to stabilized top soil by trees and the balanced needs of population achieved.
References
Erdős, L. (2019). A Passion for Trees–Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement. In Green Heroes (pp. 181-185). Springer, Cham.
Maathai, W. (2005). Nobel Peace Prize Speech: Nobel Lecture, Oslo, 10 December 2004. Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism , 6 (1), 195-201.
Smulders, S. (2016). ‘Information and Inspiration’: Wangari Maathai, the Green Belt Movement and Eco-Children's Literature. International Research in Children's Literature , 9 (1), 20-34.
Wagner, C. L. (2016). Restoring Relationship: How the Methodologies of Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement in Post-Colonial Kenya Achieve Environmental Healing and Women's Empowerment.
