Introducing After Six

Girl Friday focuses on four interconnected themes. The second theme, After Six, centers on Environmental Protection and Wildlife Conservation. There has been ongoing debate on whether or not we are inching closer to a Sixth Mass Extinction. There’s one thing scientists seem to agree on: we need to protect our planet to the very best of our ability because we will not have that chance After Six.

My very first “job” was in second grade, as a reporter for a children’s newspaper. My favorite story was on protecting animals forced to work in circuses. I believe that started my interest in protection and conservation. When thinking of the many women I admire in those fields, I immediately thought of 2004 Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, the founder of the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya. She understood that environmental protection and wildlife conservation do not exist in isolation and are connected to gender equality, human rights, and democracy. She once said, “If you destroy the forest then the river will stop flowing, the rains will become irregular, the crops will fail and you will die of hunger and starvation.” 

Professor Maathai’s work is legendary and she was rightly honored with the The Sophie Prize (2004), The Petra Kelly Prize for Environment (2004), and The Conservation Scientist Award (2004), to name a few. She passed away in 2011 and her work lives on. Today, the Greenbelt Movement “continues to stand as a testament to the power of grassroots organizing, proof that one person’s simple idea—that a community should come together to plant trees, can make a difference. Her legacy truly lives on through the Movement which to date remains in the frontline of advocating for environmental conservation in Kenya, and making great progress on reclaiming and restoring forest land.”

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