VOA双语新闻 Nobel Prize Laureate

The winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, is in New York to call attention to her message linking environmental protection and peace.

今年的诺贝尔和平奖得主、肯尼亚的环境保护人士旺加里·马塔伊在纽约宣传把环保与和平相联系的主张。

Ms. Maathai says the Nobel Peace Prize will give greater legitimacy 1 to environmentalists across the globe and help her Green Belt movement overcome obstacles.

马塔伊指出，诺贝尔和平奖有助于全球的环保人士得到更多应有的地位，有助于为她的“绿色地带运动”排除障碍。

"Now with the Nobel Peace Prize, we feel that many people will be willing to support us, including governments, which have a lot of resources, and also many civil society organizations, which would have been afraid in the past will now be able to embrace this approach and I hope we can do a lot of good not only in Kenya, but also in Africa and, indeed, beyond," she said.

马塔伊说：“我们觉得，得到诺贝尔和平奖之后，人们会更加愿意支持我们，其中包括有着大量资源的各国政府以及许多民间组织，它们不必象以前那样害怕。我希望我们能够做许多有益的事情，不仅在肯尼亚，还有整个非洲，乃至更大的范围。”

Ms. Maathai was educated in the United States in the 1960s, during the era of the civil rights movement. The experience, she says, encouraged her to go home and do something positive for the people of Kenya. In the late 1970s, Ms. Maathai began the Green Belt movement to help poor women in rural communities meet their most basic needs.

马塔伊是在60年代美国民权运动期间在美国接受教育的。她说，这段经历激励她回到肯尼亚，为肯尼亚人民做一些积极的事情。70年代后期，马塔伊开始了“绿色地带运动”，帮助农村地区的贫困妇女满足最基本的需求。

"The women had identified such needs as the need for firewood, which is the main source of energy in the rural areas, the need for food, the need for clean drinking water, the need for building materials," she explained. "As you can see, all of those are fruits of the land. At that time also there was soil erosion because of deforestation of the upstream, especially up on the mountains. So I got this idea almost in passing that if we planted the trees we would be able to address some of these needs that the women had and we would be able to stabilize 2 the soil. We started that way, but eventually it moved to other areas. It moved to issues of democracy, issues of human rights, women's rights, issues of peace. But initially 3 it was a very basic activity of meeting the needs of rural women."

马塔伊说：“ 妇女们需要柴火，那是农村地区最重要的能源来源。她们需要食物和清洁的饮用水，还需要建筑材料。可以看出，这些都产自于土地，而当时由于上游的森林被砍伐，尤其是山里树木减少，造成了土壤流失。因此，我立刻想到，如果种树，就可以解决这些妇女的需要，并且可以保护土壤。我们就这样开始了，后来又扩大到其它领域，比如民主、人权、妇女权利以及和平等。而我们的初衷是解决农村妇女的基本需求。”

The Green Belt movement has planted millions trees in Kenya and across Africa. Along the way, the movement's mission expanded as Ms. Maathai concluded that environmental protection is inextricably linked to good governance.

“绿色地带运动”在肯尼亚和整个非洲种植了数千万棵树木。正象马塔伊所说的，在这个过程中，“绿色地带运动”的范围扩大了，环境保护和良好的政府管理问题紧密地联系在了一起。

In awarding the Peace Prize to Ms. Maathai, the Nobel Committee cited her courageous 4 stand against Kenya's former oppressive government, saying she has served as an inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights and has especially encouraged women to improve their situation. She says it was not her intention to become involved in politics.

诺贝尔委员会为马塔伊颁发和平奖时，表彰了马塔伊面对肯尼亚前独裁者的勇气。诺贝尔委员会指出，马塔伊激励许多人为民主权利而斗争，尤其是鼓励妇女改善自己的处境。马塔伊说，参与政治并不是她的初衷。

"It became obvious to me in the course of our work that it is important to have good governance," she added. "Otherwise, you will be reconstructing and the people who are managing the state will be destroying. That is the way eventually the movement became part of the pro-democracy movement in Kenya."

她说：“在工作过程中，我越来越清楚地意识到良好的政府管理的重要性。否则，你在重建，政府却在毁坏。这就是‘绿色地带运动’最终成为肯尼亚民主运动一部份的原因。”

Ms. Maathai currently serves as deputy environment minister.

马塔伊现在担任肯尼亚环境部副部长。

Her selection as Nobel Laureate has met with some controversy 5. Critics question the Nobel Committee's choice of an environmentalist for the Peace Prize, which frequently is given to world leaders. But Ms. Maathai thinks the Committee wanted to send a clear signal recognizing the link between sustainable development, natural resources and conflict.

她获得诺贝尔和平奖引起了一些争议。批评人士对评奖委员会把通常授予世界领袖的和平奖颁发给一名环保人士提出质疑。但是马塔伊认为，委员会希望借此发出一个明确的信息，即肯定可持续发展、自然资源以及冲突之间的相互关联。

"What the Norwegian Nobel Peace Committee is emphasizing and wants the world to focus on is to bring the environment and, especially the management of resources to the center stage, and to invest in areas where we can prevent conflict over them," she said.

马塔伊说：“挪威诺贝尔和平奖委员会要强调以及希望世界能够关注的是，把环境，尤其是对资源的管理放到中心地位，并且在防止资源冲突的领域进行投资。”

Wangari Maathai is the first African woman ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She says the challenge ahead is to turn the experience she has gained into laws that insure the protection of the environment for the future.

马塔伊是第一位获得诺贝尔和平奖的非洲女性。她说，接下来的挑战是把她的经验法制化，从而确保为未来保护环境。