Because I Was A Woman,

We Tend To Put The Environment Last Because We Think The First Thing We Have To Do Is Eliminate Poverty And Send Children To School And Provide Health.

After Hurricane Katrina, Many People Said That The Levees Were Not As Effective As The Natural Vegetation That Had Been Removed At The Coast. So That Means As We Develop These Seaside Land Masses, We Need To Have Enough Knowledge To Not Regret In The Future. We Know That The Us Government Is Literally Buying These Lands Back To Allow Them To Be Rehabilitated.

When Resources Are Degraded, We Start Competing For Them, Whether It Is At The Local Level In Kenya, Where We Had Tribal Clashes Over Land And Water, Or At The Global Level, Where We Are Fighting Over Water, Oil, And Minerals. So One Way To Promote Peace Is To Promote Sustainable Management And Equitable Distribution Of Resources.

I'm Sure The Government Of Qatar Is Not Coming In To Grow Food For The People Of Kenya; It's Coming To Grow Food To Sell. If It Can Also Sell To The People Of Kenya, Well, Then Good. I Think That The Moves Can Be Helpful, But I Think That The History That Africa Knows, As I Say In My Book, Has Been A History Of Exploitation.

But When You Have Bad Governance, Of Course, These Resources Are Destroyed: The Forests Are Deforested, There Is Illegal Logging, There Is Soil Erosion. I Got Pulled Deeper And Deeper And Saw How These Issues Become Linked To Governance, To Corruption, To Dictatorship.