In the last few years, we have seen an unprecedented move in awarding mediocrity internationally, especially where the awards are funded by those with vested interests around environmental or climate issues in Africa. Environmental and climate financing has led to creating pawns and puppets in Africa, who are used to further the agenda of investors pursuing renewable energy contracts, natural resources and carbon credits generated in Africa. In Kenya, President Ruto is being touted as a Climate Champion. We beg to differ. His position on Climate issues shifts repeatedly depending on his audience, climate funding and clout that he is receiving. We have witnessed environmental/climate charlatans working with President Ruto gain funding from the World Economic Forum (WEF) partners and receiving various international awards, for pretty much giving speeches that are crafted and drafted by these WEF partners.
Notably, both of these environmental grifters work for the Wangari Maathai organizations, and it seems that the WEF partners selectively picked charlatans here, given the international recognition of their founder the late Wangari Maathai who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Undoubtedly, the late Wangari Maathai was a real environmentalist who shed blood, sweat and tears fighting land grabbing around Kenya’s forests. Her daughter Wanjira Mathai, not so much.
Ms. Wanjira Mathai.
Ms. Mathai is currently the chair of the Wangari Maathai Foundation and a Director at the Green Belt Movement that was founded by her late mother. She is a board member of the World Agroforestry Center. Ironically, World Agroforestry Centre headquarters are built on a grabbed stolen parcel of land that belongs to Karura Forest. The same Karura Forest that her late mother fought tirelessly to preserve!
In December 2019, Wanjira Mathai was appointed as Managing Director of Africa and Global Partnerships at World Resources Institute (WRI). This organization was seeking to open an office in Nairobi, and therefore they hired Ms. Mathai who was already associated with her mother’s reputable organizations, to legitimize and offer credibility to this new WRI office in Kenya. Subsequently, WRI Africa led by Wanjira Mathai received USD$100 million from the Bezos Earth Fund. Why? Let’s follow the money!
The immediate former President & CEO of WRI Dr. Andrew Steer is now the President &CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. Also, Wanjira Mathai works as the Chief Africa Advisor to the Bezos Earth Fund. Through the Bezos’ partnership with Time Magazine, Wanjira Mathai was nominated as Time 100 most influential people of 2023 with Andrew Steer CEO of Bezos Earth Fund endorsing this nomination in Time Magazine. The Bezos Earth Fund claims that Wanjira Mathai has worked as an ‘environmental leader, championing Africa’s vital role in climate action and sustainable development’. We can’t verify any of that besides working for her late mother’s organization, she has not been actively involved in many of Africa’s environmental and climate activities nor public discussions for many years. Moreover, the Bezos Earth Fund that is only 3 years young, exaggerated that statement to legitimize or build credibility to their chief Africa advisor, and their own organization.
Wanjira Mathai was appointed as a technical advisor by Kenya’s government this year for the Africa Climate Summit. Shockingly, Kenya’s President William Ruto announced that he was lifting the ban on logging because some mature trees no longer absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Given this announcement, you would expect strong reactions from real environmentalists. Wanjira Mathai said and did nothing. She did not come out publicly to condemn this move from the government. She went along with this, even as Afribundance joined other environmental groups in detesting and protesting against the lifting of this logging ban.
Wanjira claims to be supporting restoration in Africa, but her actions speak differently. When Kenya’s government allowed the sale of indigenous 3000 year-old climate resilient baobab trees to Georgia, Wanjira did not publicly try to stop this. Again, she did not do anything to prove that she is into restoring landscapes as they vehemently try to make us believe. Afribundance exposed how WEF partners including Bezos Earth Fund and WRI have been promoting Greenwashing tactics in Africa in another article.
The Goldman Environmental Prize claimed that Wanjira Mathai is a ‘member of their jury since 2019 who has over 20 years of experience advocating for social and environmental change on both local and international platforms’. Really? Those of us that have lived in Kenya highly beg to differ. They need to show us proof or cite some examples avoiding this use of vague generalization.
When Bill Gates claimed that planting trees to help Climate Change is ‘Complete Nonsense’, none of these environmental charlatans including Wanjira Mathai stood up to defend their tree planting and landscape restoration cause.
In the recent years, Wanjira has been thrust into the limelight by these WEF partners including the Bezos Earth Fund and World Resources Institute, so as to further their agenda in Africa. The Bezos Earth Fund needs to have worker ‘bees’ on the ground planting trees for two reasons. To source for wood and wood products for their huge business empire, and secondly, to have trees planted to generate carbon credits that would offset their carbon emissions both from their business and space tourism. We saw this when Jeff Bezos visited Gabon’s now ousted president Ali Ondimba, one of the most corrupt leaders in the world, and offering some opaque financial deals that were not made public. This largely explains why Africans are being engaged to plant billions of trees.
Yesterday, a report mentioned that there is a proposed construction of a water transmission pipeline that would run through Karura forest. This would lead to further destruction of the forest, through cutting down of indigenous trees. Ironically, this pipeline construction is designed to be laid along the Wangari Maathai track. Where is Wanjira Mathai to halt this? Her mother would be appalled at such development projects only designed to destroy the forest, as land grabbers keep chipping away sections of this forest. Last year, a sewer line was installed that ran through the forest, again causing unnecessary destruction of the forest and the sewage systems directed to the rivers in Karura causing pollution.
This encroachment of Karura forest is yet to be addressed. Rich people, government politicians, large foreign organizations have been grabbing this land and are yet to be evicted. On the contrary, poor indigenous communities including the Ogiek and Sengwer whose ancestral lands lay in the Mau forest have been forcefully evicted, their homes torched and have been rendered homeless. Why this injustice? What has Wanjira Mathai done to address this? Nothing! So it was ironic to see King Charles III and Wanjira Mathai plant a tree at Karura forest yesterday, yet they didn’t defend the proposed destruction of the forest.
King Charles III went on to address the United Nations Office in Nairobi, calling for “action, partnership and commitment” to combat the environmental threats that the planet faces. The irony is that the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP global headquarters and some surrounding diplomatic complexes were grabbed from Karura Forest. How about we start by reclaiming that land first.
King Charles stated that “Wildfires have left countless acres bereft of the healthy forests that sustain our planet and our livelihoods’. What a joke! In 2021, British Army Training Unit in Kenya (BATUK) caused a huge fire destroying 12,000 acres of land. This massive fire killed the late Linus Murangiri, caused smoke inhalation problems for children and vulnerable adults, and saw thousands of homes and farms destroyed, leaving the local residents deprived of their food and livelihoods. This fire also caused the death of different wild animals living in a conservancy.
Wanjira Mathai the environmental grifter has never publicly addressed this issue, nor demanded for justice and the compensation of the local residents. King Charles stayed away from addressing this fire, and we couldn’t help but think that his Kenyan trip was mainly to achieve two things. To pave way for his attendance to COP 28 in Dubai, and to simply launch his Africa Council unit for his Sustainable Markets Initiative that he founded in 2020, of all places at the World Economic Forum (WEF) headquarters in Davos.
Ms. Elizabeth Wathuti
Another environmental charlatan is Ms. Elizabeth Wathuti. Ms.Wathuti received the Wangari Maathai scholarship, works for the Wangari Maathai Foundation, a member of the Green Belt Movement and founded her own Initiative. Ms.Wathuti was one of the speakers at the Global Citizen Summit earlier this year that we exposed for using climate alarmism from statements in her speech.
During her speech at the UN COP26, Wathuti mentioned heat waves, wildfires and floods in neighboring countries. Why hasn’t she joined us in fighting weather modification technologies in Africa by some of these WEF partners? We are aware of cloud-seeding experiments that have resulted in heavy flooding in certain African areas, but these environmental grifter chooses to ignore research and only rely on personal emotions heavily influenced by her donors or funders.
Wathuti received the Time100 Impact Award, through her association to Ms.Mathai that we discussed earlier. In 2023, Wathuti received the Amnesty International Chair Award that is awarded to an ‘individual who has made an outstanding contribution to human rights worldwide’. To this date, we cannot verify any single human right action that Wathuti has been involved in. Has she been fighting for the victims of wrongful evictions in Kenya? No. Fighting for the victims of the British fire that we mentioned earlier? No? What is Amnesty International talking about? No wonder Amnesty international has received such backlash for decades following its researcher bias and donor influence. WEF partners donate to Amnesty International too! Wathuti has planted some trees, and presented speeches drafted for her, but fighting for human rights, not believable! Ms. Wathuti is not doing anything more important than the hundreds of thousands of Africans planting trees. The only thing Wathuti is doing differently is working for her donors and not for the local African people.
Ms.Wathuti got appointed by Kenya’s president Ruto, who has allowed the logging of trees, yet Wathuti did not protest this absurd move. She was appointed to lead the first ever African Youth Climate Assembly (AYCA) that was just a quick assembly organized by donors to act as if the Africa Climate Summit included youth and women in voicing their opinions. Total sham! Real African voices were not represented, because none of the youth present addressed the bloodshed and inhumane human rights abuses and violations of the Maasai in Loliondo Ngorongoro, Ogiek and Sengwer in the Mau and other indigenous communities. They did not speak for marginalized and vulnerable groups in Africa who are suffering from the forceful evictions resulting from the massive expansion of carbon offset projects. Additionally, many local businesses selling tree seedlings are being displaced by larger foreign organizations that have taken over tree planting initiatives for carbon credit revenues. Additionally, Kenya’s indigenous trees are being destroyed and replaced with exotic trees. The environmental charlatans have not condemned this publicly like we did in another article.
These environmental grifters are co-conspirators in the destruction and exploitation of Africa’s forests and natural resources. Afribundance has exposed how African government officials have been destroying forests through illegal timber trafficking, as well as illegal wildlife trafficking. That is why they award and appoint these environmental charlatans to help perpetuate this exploitation. None of these environmental and climate grifters spoke up against the Kenyan Safari Rally, set in the middle of a national park that largely destroys the environment, causes a lot of pollution and harms wild animals. You can watch this short clip here.
Afribundance is here to amplify the real voices of environmentalists who do not get the spotlight when doing the tough work of fighting for our environmental rights. We will continue to expose these charlatans that are allowing the destruction of Africa’s forests and resources by the same people funding them. The last thing Africa needs is people that claim to speak for us, yet are working for the same people destroying our continent. Additionally, we can’t ignore the deliberate efforts by these organizations to use women and youth to talk about environmental issues. That is purposely done by design to hoodwink the world into thinking about ‘inclusivity’. We cannot stay silent, nor be seen as complicit. We have noted that any dissenting opinions on environmental and climate issues in Africa are being silenced, only allowing the WEF partners’ curated opinions. This is wrong. Afribundance joins the hundreds of true environmentalists in Africa whose voice is being drowned by those funded by large WEF partners.