Providing Institutional Legal Support

Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement

Non-governmental organizations that promote environmental human rights may be in need of institutional legal assistance to carry on their work. EDLC has obtained assistance for a number of these organizations, with one prominent example described below.

The Green Belt Movement International

The Green Belt Movement was founded by Kenyan environmentalist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Wangari Maathai. This tremendously successful development and community empowerment movement stresses the fundamental link between the environment, democracy, and peace. It is comprised and led mainly by women, and uses tree planting as an entry point.

The Green Belt Movement International (GBMI) was established to expand the scope and reach of the movement “to empower individuals worldwide to protect the environment and to promote good governance and cultures of peace.” EDLC was asked by Wanjira Mathai, the laureate's daughter and Executive Director of GBMI, to obtain legal services to support this important work.

Since then, a dozen lawyers at DLA Piper US have answered that request, providing expert help in a dazzling variety of subject matter areas:

  • working on charitable status, tax, and compliance issues related to federal and state laws.
  • providing review and guidance for the development of a pilot emissions reduction contract with the World Bank's BioCarbon fund program, a project that will restore indigenous forest on five thousand acres of land in the Aberdares and Mt. Kenya areas of Kenya.
  • developing an emissions reduction contract for use with voluntary market buyers.
  • overseeing contractual arrangements with service providers and related marketing arrangements.
  • working on human resources policy development, employee and consulting contracts, and employee letters.
  • advising on intellectual property issues.

DLA Piper and the Green Belt Movement International continue to explore new ways in which the firm can provide legal assistance to help the organization achieve its goals.

When you start working with the environment seriously, the whole arena comes: human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, everybody’s rights.

- Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement and the first environmentalist to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (2004).