title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: ATP synthase is a massive protein complex with a mushroom-like shape. The mammalian enzyme complex contains 16 subunits and has a mass of approximately 600 kilodaltons. The portion embedded within the membrane is called F and contains a ring of c subunits and the proton channel. The stalk and the ball-shaped headpiece is called F and is the site of ATP synthesis. The ball-shaped complex at the end of the F portion contains six proteins of two different kinds (three α subunits and three β subunits), whereas the "stalk" consists of one protein: the γ subunit, with the tip of the stalk extending into the ball of α and β subunits. Both the α and β subunits bind nucleotides, but only the β subunits catalyze the ATP synthesis reaction. Reaching along the side of the F portion and back into the membrane is a long rod-like subunit that anchors the α and β subunits into the base of the enzyme.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: As protons cross the membrane through the channel in the base of ATP synthase, the F proton-driven motor rotates. Rotation might be caused by changes in the ionization of amino acids in the ring of c subunits causing electrostatic interactions that propel the ring of c subunits past the proton channel. This rotating ring in turn drives the rotation of the central axle (the γ subunit stalk) within the α and β subunits. The α and β subunits are prevented from rotating themselves by the side-arm, which acts as a stator. This movement of the tip of the γ subunit within the ball of α and β subunits provides the energy for the active sites in the β subunits to undergo a cycle of movements that produces and then releases ATP.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: This ATP synthesis reaction is called the "binding change mechanism" and involves the active site of a β subunit cycling between three states. In the "open" state, ADP and phosphate enter the active site (shown in brown in the diagram). The protein then closes up around the molecules and binds them loosely – the "loose" state (shown in red). The enzyme then changes shape again and forces these molecules together, with the active site in the resulting "tight" state (shown in pink) binding the newly produced ATP molecule with very high affinity. Finally, the active site cycles back to the open state, releasing ATP and binding more ADP and phosphate, ready for the next cycle.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: In some bacteria and archaea, ATP synthesis is driven by the movement of sodium ions through the cell membrane, rather than the movement of protons. Archaea such as "Methanococcus" also contain the AA synthase, a form of the enzyme that contains additional proteins with little similarity in sequence to other bacterial and eukaryotic ATP synthase subunits. It is possible that, in some species, the AA form of the enzyme is a specialized sodium-driven ATP synthase, but this might not be true in all cases.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: The transport of electrons from redox pair NAD/ NADH to the final redox pair 1/2 O/ HO can be summarized as


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: The potential difference between these two redox pairs is 1.14 volt, which is equivalent to -52 kcal/mol or -2600 kJ per 6 mol of O.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: When one NADH is oxidized through the electron transfer chain, three ATPs are produced, which is equivalent to 7.3 kcal/mol x 3 = 21.9 kcal/mol.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: So we can conclude that when NADH is oxidized, about 42% of energy is conserved in the form of three ATPs and the remaining (58%) energy is lost as heat (unless the chemical energy of ATP under physiological conditions was underestimated).


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: Molecular oxygen is a good terminal electron acceptor because it is a strong oxidizing agent. The reduction of oxygen does involve potentially harmful intermediates. Although the transfer of four electrons and four protons reduces oxygen to water, which is harmless, transfer of one or two electrons produces superoxide or peroxide anions, which are dangerously reactive.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: These reactive oxygen species and their reaction products, such as the hydroxyl radical, are very harmful to cells, as they oxidize proteins and cause mutations in DNA. This cellular damage might contribute to disease and is proposed as one cause of aging.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: The cytochrome c oxidase complex is highly efficient at reducing oxygen to water, and it releases very few partly reduced intermediates; however small amounts of superoxide anion and peroxide are produced by the electron transport chain. Particularly important is the reduction of coenzyme Q in complex III, as a highly reactive ubisemiquinone free radical is formed as an intermediate in the Q cycle. This unstable species can lead to electron "leakage" when electrons transfer directly to oxygen, forming superoxide. As the production of reactive oxygen species by these proton-pumping complexes is greatest at high membrane potentials, it has been proposed that mitochondria regulate their activity to maintain the membrane potential within a narrow range that balances ATP production against oxidant generation. For instance, oxidants can activate uncoupling proteins that reduce membrane potential.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: To counteract these reactive oxygen species, cells contain numerous antioxidant systems, including antioxidant vitamins such as vitamin C and vitamin E, and antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxidases, which detoxify the reactive species, limiting damage to the cell.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: As oxygen is fundamental for oxidative phosphorylation, a shortage in O level likely alters ATP production rates. However, proton motive force and ATP production can be maintained by intracellular acidosis. Cytosolic protons that have accumulated with ATP hydrolysis and lactic acidosis can freely diffuse across the mitochondrial outer-membrane and acidify the inter-membrane space, hence directly contributing to the proton motive force and ATP production.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: There are several well-known drugs and toxins that inhibit oxidative phosphorylation. Although any one of these toxins inhibits only one enzyme in the electron transport chain, inhibition of any step in this process will halt the rest of the process. For example, if oligomycin inhibits ATP synthase, protons cannot pass back into the mitochondrion. As a result, the proton pumps are unable to operate, as the gradient becomes too strong for them to overcome. NADH is then no longer oxidized and the citric acid cycle ceases to operate because the concentration of NAD falls below the concentration that these enzymes can use.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: Many site-specific inhibitors of the electron transport chain have contributed to the present knowledge of mitochondrial respiration. Synthesis of ATP is also dependent on the electron transport chain, so all site-specific inhibitors also inhibit ATP formation. The fish poison rotenone, the barbiturate drug amytal, and the antibiotic piericidin A inhibit NADH and coenzyme Q.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: Carbon monoxide, cyanide, hydrogen sulphide and azide effectively inhibit cytochrome oxidase. Carbon monoxide reacts with the reduced form of the cytochrome while cyanide and azide react with the oxidised form. An antibiotic, antimycin A, and British anti-Lewisite, an antidote used against chemical weapons, are the two important inhibitors of the site between cytochrome B and C1.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: Not all inhibitors of oxidative phosphorylation are toxins. In brown adipose tissue, regulated proton channels called uncoupling proteins can uncouple respiration from ATP synthesis. This rapid respiration produces heat, and is particularly important as a way of maintaining body temperature for hibernating animals, although these proteins may also have a more general function in cells' responses to stress.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: The field of oxidative phosphorylation began with the report in 1906 by Arthur Harden of a vital role for phosphate in cellular fermentation, but initially only sugar phosphates were known to be involved. However, in the early 1940s, the link between the oxidation of sugars and the generation of ATP was firmly established by Herman Kalckar, confirming the central role of ATP in energy transfer that had been proposed by Fritz Albert Lipmann in 1941. Later, in 1949, Morris Friedkin and Albert L. Lehninger proved that the coenzyme NADH linked metabolic pathways such as the citric acid cycle and the synthesis of ATP. The term "oxidative phosphorylation" was coined by in 1939.


title: Oxidative phosphorylation

text: For another twenty years, the mechanism by which ATP is generated remained mysterious, with scientists searching for an elusive "high-energy intermediate" that would link oxidation and phosphorylation reactions. This puzzle was solved by Peter D. Mitchell with the publication of the chemiosmotic theory in 1961. At first, this proposal was highly controversial, but it was slowly accepted and Mitchell was awarded a Nobel prize in 1978. Subsequent research concentrated on purifying and characterizing the enzymes involved, with major contributions being made by David E. Green on the complexes of the electron-transport chain, as well as Efraim Racker on the ATP synthase. A critical step towards solving the mechanism of the ATP synthase was provided by Paul D. Boyer, by his development in 1973 of the "binding change" mechanism, followed by his radical proposal of rotational catalysis in 1982. More recent work has included structural studies on the enzymes involved in oxidative phosphorylation by John E. Walker, with Walker and Boyer being awarded a Nobel Prize in 1997.


title: Marche

text: Marche ( , ) is one of the twenty regions of Italy. In English, the region is sometimes referred to as The Marches ( ). The region is located in the central area of the country, bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the north, Tuscany to the west, Umbria to the southwest, Abruzzo and Lazio to the south and the Adriatic Sea to the east. Except for river valleys and the often very narrow coastal strip, the land is hilly.


title: Marche

text: A railway from Bologna to Brindisi, built in the 19th century, runs along the coast of the entire territory. Inland, the mountainous nature of the region, even today, allows relatively little travel north and south, except by twisting roads over the passes. Urbino, one of the major cities of the region, was the birthplace of Raphael, as well as a major centre of Renaissance history.


title: Marche

text: The name of the region derives from the plural of the medieval word "marca", meaning "march" or "mark" in the sense of border zone, originally referring to a borderland territory of the Holy Roman Empire, such as the March of Ancona and others pertaining to the ancient region.


title: Marche

text: Marche extends over an area of of the central Adriatic slope between Emilia-Romagna to the north, Tuscany and Umbria to the west, and Lazio and Abruzzo to the south, the entire eastern boundary being formed by the Adriatic. The Umbrian enclave of Monte Ruperto (a subdivision of the Comune of Città di Castello) is entirely surrounded by the Province of Pesaro and Urbino, which constitutes the northern part of the region.


title: Marche

text: Most of the region is mountainous or hilly: the Apennine range runs longitudinally along the region's eastern border and descends through a hilly landscape towards the Adriatic sea. With the sole exception of Monte Vettore, high, the mountains do not exceed . The hilly area covers two-thirds of the region and is intersected by wide gullies with numerous short rivers and by alluvial plains perpendicular to the Appennini range. The main mountain range has a few deep river gorges: the best known are those of the Furlo, the Rossa and the Frasassi.


title: Marche

text: The coastline is long and is relatively flat and straight except for the hilly area between Gabicce and Pesaro in the north, and the eastern slopes of Monte Conero near Ancona.


title: Marche

text: Climate is temperate. Inland, in the mountainous areas, is more continental with cold and often snowy winters; by the sea is more mediterranean. Precipitation varies from per year inland and per year on the Adriatic coast.


title: Marche

text: Marche was known in ancient times as the Picenum territory. The Picens or Picentes (Ancient Greek: Πίκεντες) were the Italic tribe who lived in Picenum during the Iron Age. Many artefacts from their time are exhibited in National Archaeological Museum of the Marche Region in Ancona. In the fourth century BC, the northern area was occupied by the Senones, a tribe of Gauls. The Battle of Sentinum was fought in Marche in 295 BC; afterwards, the Romans founded numerous colonies in the area, connected to Rome by the Via Flaminia and the Via Salaria. Ascoli was a seat of Italic resistance during the Social War (91–87 BC).


title: Marche

text: Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region was invaded by the Goths. After the Gothic War, it was part of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna (Ancona, Fano, Pesaro, Rimini, and Senigallia forming the so-called Pentapolis). After the fall of the Exarchate, it was briefly in the possession of the Lombards, but was conquered by Charlemagne in the late eighth century. In the ninth to eleventh centuries, the marches of Camerino, Fermo and Ancona were created, hence the modern name.


title: Marche

text: Marche was nominally part of the Papal States, but most of the territory was under local lords, while the major cities ruled themselves as free communes. In the twelfth century, the commune of Ancona resisted both the imperial authority of Frederick Barbarossa and the Republic of Venice, and was a maritime republic on its own. An attempt to restore Papal suzerainty by Gil de Albornoz in the fourteenth century was short-lived.


title: Marche

text: During the Renaissance, the region was fought over by rival aristocratic families, such as the Malatesta of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano and the house of Montefeltro of Urbino. The last independent entity, the Duchy of Urbino, was dissolved in 1631, and from then on, Marche was firmly part of the Papal States except during the Napoleonic period. This saw the short-lived Republic of Ancona, in 1797–98; the merging of the region with the Roman Republic in 1798–99, and with the Kingdom of Italy from 1808 to 1813; and the short occupation by Joachim Murat in 1815. After Napoleon's defeat, Marche returned to Papal rule until 4 November 1860, when it was annexed to the unified Kingdom of Italy by a plebiscite.


title: Marche

text: The Bombardment of Ancona occurred during the Adriatic campaign of World War I. The Battle of Ancona occurred during the Italian campaign of World War II.


title: Marche

text: After the referendum of 2006, 7 municipalities of Montefeltro were detached from the Province of Pesaro and Urbino to join the Province of Rimini (Emilia-Romagna) on 15 August 2009. The municipalities are Casteldelci, Maiolo, Novafeltria, Pennabilli, San Leo, Sant'Agata Feltria and Talamello.


title: Marche

text: Towns in Marche were devastated by many powerful earthquakes during the centuries, the last time in 2016 (in August and in October).


title: Marche

text: Prior to the 1980s, Marche was considered a rather poor region, although economically stable in some sectors, thanks particularly to its agricultural output and to the contribution of traditional crafts.


title: Marche

text: Today the contribution of agriculture to the economy of the region is less significant and the gross value generated by this sector remains slightly above the national average. Marche has never suffered from the extremes of fragmented land ownership or 'latifondo'. Greatly diffused in the past, the sharecropping never produced an extreme land fragmentation. The main products are cereals, vegetables, animal products and grapes. Truffle hunting is popular; although it has often led to 'truffle wars' between hunters due to the imposition of quotas. Olives are also produced and managed by various harvesters. In spite of the marine impoverishment, the sea has always furnished a plentiful supply of fish, the main fishing centres being Ancona, San Benedetto del Tronto, Fano and Civitanova Marche.


title: Marche

text: Since the 1980s the economy of the region has been radically transformed, without however repudiating its rural past. Many of the small craft workshops scattered throughout the rural settlements have modernised and become small businesses, some of which have become major brands known all over the world (Indesit, Tod's, Guzzini, Teuco). This evolution led to the emergence of 'specialized' industrial areas, which are still profitable:


title: Marche

text: The region continues to draw tourists, whose increasing numbers have been attracted by the rich and broadly distributed heritage of history and monuments, as well as by the traditional seaside resorts. Marche is well known for its shoemaking tradition, with fine and luxurious Italian footwear manufacturing facilities in the region.


title: Marche

text: The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was 43.3 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 2.5% of Italy's economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 28,200 euros or 94% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 96% of the EU average.


title: Marche

text: The population density in the region is below the national average. In 2008, it was , compared to the national figure of . It is highest in the province of Ancona ( inhabitants per km2), and lowest in the province of Macerata (). Between 1952 and 1967 the population of the region decreased by 1.7% as a result of a negative migration balance, well above the national average, with a rate varying between 4.9 and 10.0 per 1,000 inhabitants. The Average fund of this region is worth about a few million or maybe higher. In the same period the natural balance of the population was positive, but lower than the national average and insufficient to counterbalance the net emigration. The population continued to decline until 1971, but in 1968 began growing again. In 2008, the Italian national institute of statistics (ISTAT) estimated that 115,299 foreign-born immigrants live in Marche, 7.4% of the total regional population.


title: Marche

text: Marche forms, along with Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria, the Italian "Red Quadrilateral", a strongly left-wing area. In the 2014 European elections, the people of Marche gave 45% of their votes to Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Wangarĩ Muta Maathai (; 1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was a Kenyan social, environmental and a political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. As a beneficiary of the Kennedy Airlift, she studied in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree from Mount St. Scholastica and a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She went on to become the first woman in East and Central Africa to become a Doctor of Philosophy, receiving her PhD from the University of Nairobi in Kenya.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. In 1984, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "converting the Kenyan ecological debate into mass action for reforestation". Maathai was an elected member of the Parliament of Kenya and between January 2003 and November 2005 served as assistant minister for environment and natural resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki. She was an Honorary Councillor of the World Future Council. As an academic and the author of several books, Maathai was not only an activist but also an intellectual who has made significant contributions to thinking about ecology, development, gender, and African cultures and religions.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Maathai was born on 1 April 1940 in the village of Ihithe, Nyeri District, in the central highlands of the colony of Kenya. Her family was Kikuyu, the most populous ethnic group in Kenya, and had lived in the area for several generations. Around 1943, Maathai's family relocated to a White-owned farm in the Rift Valley, near the town of Nakuru, where her father had found work. Late in 1947, she returned to Ihithe with her mother, as two of her brothers were attending primary school in the village, and there was no schooling available on the farm where her father worked. Her father remained at the farm. Shortly afterward, at the age of eight, she joined her brothers at Ihithe Primary School.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: At the age of 11, Maathai moved to St. Cecilia's Intermediate Primary School, a boarding school at the Mathari Catholic Mission in Nyeri. Maathai studied at St. Cecilia's for four years. During this time, she became fluent in English and converted to Catholicism. She was involved with the Legion of Mary, whose members attempted "to serve God by serving fellow human beings." Studying at St. Cecilia's, she was sheltered from the ongoing Mau Mau uprising, which forced her mother to move from their homestead to an emergency village in Ihithe. When she completed her studies there in 1956, she was rated first in her class, and was granted admission to the only Catholic high school for girls in Kenya, Loreto High School in Limuru.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: As the end of East African colonialism approached, Kenyan politicians, such as Tom Mboya, were proposing ways to make education in Western nations available to promising students. John F. Kennedy, then a United States senator, agreed to fund such a program through the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, initiating what became known as the Kennedy Airlift or Airlift Africa. Maathai became one of some 300 Kenyans selected to study in the United States in September 1960.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: She received a scholarship to study at Mount St. Scholastica College (now Benedictine College), in Atchison, Kansas, where she majored in biology, with minors in chemistry and German. After receiving her Bachelor of Science degree in 1964, she studied at the University of Pittsburgh for a master's degree in biology. Her graduate studies there were funded by the Africa-America Institute, and during her time in Pittsburgh, she first experienced environmental restoration, when local environmentalists pushed to rid the city of air pollution. In January 1966, Maathai received her MSc in biological sciences, and was appointed to a position as research assistant to a professor of zoology at University College of Nairobi.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Upon returning to Kenya, Maathai dropped her forename, preferring to be known by her birth name, Wangarĩ Muta. When she arrived at the university to start her new job, she was informed that it had been given to someone else. Maathai believed this was because of gender and tribal bias. After a two-month job search, Professor Reinhold Hofmann, from the University of Giessen in Germany, offered her a job as a research assistant in the microanatomy section of the newly established Department of Veterinary Anatomy in the School of Veterinary Medicine at University College of Nairobi. In April 1966, she met Mwangi Mathai, another Kenyan who had studied in America, who would later become her husband. She also rented a small shop in the city, and established a general store, at which her sisters worked. In 1967, at the urging of Professor Hofmann, she travelled to the University of Giessen in Germany in pursuit of a doctorate. She studied both at Giessen and the University of Munich.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In the spring of 1969, she returned to Nairobi to continue studies at the University College of Nairobi as an assistant lecturer. In May, she and Mwangi Mathai married. Later that year, she became pregnant with her first child, and her husband campaigned for a seat in Parliament, narrowly losing. During the course of the election, Tom Mboya, who had been instrumental in founding the program which sent her overseas, was assassinated. This led to President Kenyatta effectually ending multi-party democracy in Kenya. Shortly after, her first son, Waweru, was born. In 1971, she became the first Eastern African woman to receive a PhD, her doctorate in veterinary anatomy, from the University College of Nairobi, which became the University of Nairobi the following year. She completed her dissertation on the development and differentiation of gonads in bovines. Her daughter, Wanjira, was born in December 1971.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Maathai continued to teach at Nairobi, becoming a senior lecturer in anatomy in 1975, chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy in 1976 and associate professor in 1977. She was the first woman in Nairobi appointed to any of these positions. During this time, she campaigned for equal benefits for the women working on the staff of the university, going so far as trying to turn the academic staff association of the university into a union, in order to negotiate for benefits. The courts denied this bid, but many of her demands for equal benefits were later met. In addition to her work at the University of Nairobi, Maathai became involved in a number of civic organisations in the early 1970s. She was a member of the Nairobi branch of the Kenya Red Cross Society, becoming its director in 1973. She was a member of the Kenya Association of University Women. Following the establishment of the Environment Liaison Centre in 1974, Maathai was asked to be a member of the local board, eventually becoming board chair. The Environment Liaison Centre worked to promote the participation of non-governmental organisations in the work of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), whose headquarters was established in Nairobi following the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. Maathai also joined the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). Through her work at these various volunteer associations, it became evident to Maathai that the root of most of Kenya's problems was environmental degradation.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 1974, Maathai's family expanded to include her third child, son Muta. Her husband campaigned again for a seat in Parliament, hoping to represent the Lang'ata constituency, and won. During his campaign, he had promised to find jobs to limit the rising unemployment in Kenya. These promises led Maathai to connect her ideas of environmental restoration to providing jobs for the unemployed and led to the founding of Envirocare Ltd., a business that involved the planting of trees to conserve the environment, involving ordinary people in the process. This led to the planting of her first tree nursery, collocated with a government tree nursery in Karura Forest. Envirocare ran into multiple problems, primarily dealing with funding, and ultimately failed. However, through conversations concerning Envirocare and her work at the Environment Liaison Centre, UNEP made it possible to send Maathai to the first UN conference on human settlements, known as Habitat I, in June 1976.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 1977, Maathai spoke to the NCWK concerning her attendance at Habitat I. She proposed further tree planting, which the council supported. On 5 June 1977, marking World Environment Day, the NCWK marched in a procession from Kenyatta International Conference Centre in downtown Nairobi to Kamukunji Park on the outskirts of the city, where they planted seven trees in honour of historical community leaders. This was the first event of the Green Belt Movement. Maathai encouraged the women of Kenya to plant tree nurseries throughout the country, searching nearby forests for seeds to grow trees native to the area. She agreed to pay the women a small stipend for each seedling which was later planted elsewhere.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In her 2010 book, "Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World", she discussed the impact of the Green Belt Movement, explaining that the group's civic and environmental seminars stressed "the importance of communities taking responsibility for their actions and mobilizing to address their local needs," and adding, "We all need to work hard to make a difference in our neighborhoods, regions, and countries, and in the world as a whole. That means making sure we work hard, collaborate with each other, and make ourselves better agents to change." In this book, she explicitly engages with religious traditions, including the indigenous Kikuyu religion and Christianity, mobilizing them as resources for environmental thinking and activism.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Maathai and her husband, Mwangi Mathai, separated in 1977. After a lengthy separation, Mwangi filed for divorce in 1979. He was said to have believed that Wangari was "too strong-minded for a woman" and that he was "unable to control her". In addition to naming her as "cruel" in court filings, he publicly accused her of adultery with another Member of Parliament, which in turn was thought to cause his high blood pressure and the judge ruled in Mwangi's favour. Shortly after the trial, in an interview with "Viva" magazine, Maathai referred to the judge as either incompetent or corrupt. The interview later led the judge to charge Maathai with contempt of court. She was found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail. After three days in Lang'ata Women's Prison in Nairobi, her lawyer formulated a statement which the court found sufficient for her release. Shortly after the divorce, her former husband sent a letter via his lawyer demanding that Maathai drop his surname. She chose to add an extra "a" instead of changing her name.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: The divorce had been costly, and with lawyers' fees and the loss of her husband's income, Maathai found it difficult to provide for herself and their children on her university wages. An opportunity arose to work for the Economic Commission for Africa through the United Nations Development Programme. As this job required extended travel throughout Africa and was based primarily in Lusaka, Zambia, she was unable to bring her children with her. Maathai chose to send them to her ex-husband and take the job. While she visited them regularly, they lived with their father until 1985.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 1979, shortly after the divorce, Maathai ran for the position of chairperson of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK), an umbrella organisation consisting of many women's organisations in the country. The newly-elected President of Kenya, Daniel arap Moi, tried to limit the amount of influence those of the Kikuyu ethnicity held in the country, including in volunteer civic organisations such as the NCWK. She lost this election by three votes, but was overwhelmingly chosen to be the vice-chairman of the organisation. The following year, Maathai again ran for chairman of the NCWK. Again she was opposed, she believes, by the government. When it became apparent that Maathai was going to win the election, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, a member organisation which represented a majority of Kenya's rural women and whose leader was close to Arap Moi, withdrew from the NCWK. Maathai was then elected chairman of the NCWK unopposed. However, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake came to receive a majority of the financial support for women's programs in the country, and NCWK was left virtually bankrupt. Future funding was much more difficult to come by, but the NCWK survived by increasing its focus on the environment and making its presence and work known. Maathai continued to be reelected to serve as chairman of the organization every year until she retired from the position in 1987.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 1982, the Parliamentary seat representing her home region of Nyeri was open, and Maathai decided to campaign for the seat. As required by law, she resigned her position with the University of Nairobi to campaign for office. The courts decided that she was ineligible to run for office because she had not re-registered to vote in the last presidential election in 1979. Maathai believed this to be false and illegal, and brought the matter to court. The court was to meet at nine in the morning, and if she received a favorable ruling, was required to present her candidacy papers in Nyeri by three in the afternoon that day. The judge disqualified her from running on a technicality. When she requested her job back, she was denied. As she lived in university housing and was no longer a staff member, she was evicted.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 in response to the environmental concerns raised by rural Kenyan women. She moved into a small home she had purchased years before, and focused on the NCWK before becoming employed again. In the course of her work through the NCWK, she had the opportunity to partner with the executive director of the Norwegian Forestry Society, Wilhelm Elsrud. Maathai became the coordinator. Along with the partnership for the Norwegian Forestry Society, the movement had also received "seed money" from the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Women. These funds allowed for the expansion of the movement, for hiring additional employees to oversee the operations, and for continuing to pay a small stipend to the women who planted seedlings throughout the country. It allowed her to refine the operations of the movement, paying a small stipend to the women's husbands and sons who were literate and able to keep accurate records of seedlings planted.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: The UN held the third global women's conference in Nairobi. During the conference, Maathai arranged seminars and presentations to describe the work the Green Belt Movement was doing in Kenya. She escorted delegates to see nurseries and plant trees. She met Peggy Snyder, the head of UNIFEM, and Helvi Sipilä, the first woman appointed a UN assistant secretary general. The conference helped to expand funding for the Green Belt Movement and led to the movement's establishing itself outside Kenya. In 1986, with funding from UNEP, the movement expanded throughout Africa and led to the foundation of the Pan-African Green Belt Network. Forty-five representatives from fifteen African countries travelled to Kenya over the next three years to learn how to set up similar programs in their own countries to combat desertification, deforestation, water crises, and rural hunger. The attention the movement received in the media led to Maathai's being honored with numerous awards. The government of Kenya, however, demanded that the Green Belt Movement separate from the NCWK, believing the latter should focus solely on women's issues, not the environment. Therefore, in 1987, Maathai stepped down as chairperson of the NCWK and focused on the newly separate non-governmental organisation.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In the latter half of the 1980s, the Kenyan government came down against Maathai and the Green Belt Movement. The single-party regime opposed many of the movement's positions regarding democratic rights. The government invoked a colonial-era law prohibiting groups of more than nine people from meeting without a government license. In 1988, the Green Belt Movement carried out pro-democracy activities such as registering voters for the election and pressing for constitutional reform and freedom of expression. The government carried out electoral fraud in the elections to maintain power, according to Maathai.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In October 1989, Maathai learned of a plan to construct the 60-storey Kenya Times Media Trust Complex in Uhuru Park. The complex was intended to house the headquarters of KANU, the "Kenya Times" newspaper, a trading center, offices, an auditorium, galleries, shopping malls, and parking space for 2,000 cars. The plan also included a large statue of President Daniel Arap Moi. Maathai wrote many letters in protest to, among others, the "Kenya Times", the Office of the President, the Nairobi city commission, the provincial commissioner, the minister for environment and natural resources, the executive directors of UNEP and the Environment Liaison Centre International, the executive director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the ministry of public works, and the permanent secretary in the department of international security and administration all received letters. She wrote to Sir John Johnson, the British high commissioner in Nairobi, urging him to intervene with Robert Maxwell, a major shareholder in the project, equating the construction of a tower in Uhuru Park to such construction in Hyde Park or Central Park and maintaining that it could not be tolerated.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: The government refused to respond to her inquiries and protests, instead responding through the media that Maathai was "a crazy woman"; that denying the project in Uhuru Park would take more than a small portion of public park land; and proclaiming the project as a "fine and magnificent work of architecture" opposed by only the "ignorant few." On 8 November 1989, Parliament expressed outrage at Maathai's actions, complaining of her letters to foreign organisations and calling the Green Belt Movement a bogus organisation and its members "a bunch of divorcees". They suggested that if Maathai was so comfortable writing to Europeans, perhaps she should go live in Europe.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Despite Maathai's protests, as well as popular protest growing throughout the city, the ground was broken at Uhuru Park for construction of the complex on 15 November 1989. Maathai sought an injunction in the Kenya High Court to halt construction, but the case was thrown out on 11 December. In his first public comments pertaining to the project, President Daniel Arap Moi stated that those who opposed the project had "insects in their heads". On 12 December, in Uhuru Park, during a speech celebrating independence from the British, President Moi suggested Maathai be a proper woman in the African tradition and respect men and be quiet. She was forced by the government to vacate her office, and the Green Belt Movement was moved into her home. The government audited the Green Belt Movement in an apparent attempt to shut it down. Despite the government's efforts, her protests and the media coverage the government's response garnered led foreign investors to cancel the project in January 1990.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In January 1992, it came to the attention of Maathai and other pro-democracy activists that a list of people were targeted for assassination and that a government-sponsored coup was possible. Maathai's name was on the list. The pro-democracy group, known as the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), presented its information to the media, calling for a general election. Later that day, Maathai received a warning that one of their members had been arrested. Maathai decided to barricade herself in her home. Shortly thereafter, police arrived and surrounded the house. She was besieged for three days before police cut through the bars she had installed on her windows, came in, and arrested her. She and the other pro-democracy activists who had been arrested were charged with spreading malicious rumors, sedition, and treason. After a day and a half in jail, they were brought to a hearing and released on bail. A variety of international organisations and eight senators (including Al Gore and Edward M. Kennedy) put pressure on the Kenyan government to substantiate the charges against the pro-democracy activists or risk damaging relations with the United States. In November 1992, the Kenyan government dropped the charges.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: On 28 February 1992, while released on bail, Maathai and others took part in a hunger strike in a corner of Uhuru Park, which they labeled Freedom Corner, to pressure the government to release political prisoners. After four days of hunger strike, on 3 March 1992, the police forcibly removed the protesters. Maathai and three others were knocked unconscious by police and hospitalized. President Daniel arap Moi called her "a mad woman" and "a threat to the order and security of the country". The attack drew international criticism. The US State Department said it was "deeply concerned" by the violence and by the forcible removal of the hunger strikers. When the prisoners were not released, the protesters – mostly mothers of those in prison – moved their protest to All Saints Cathedral, the seat of the Anglican Archbishop in Kenya, across from Uhuru Park. The protest there continued, with Maathai contributing frequently, until early 1993 when the prisoners were finally released.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: During this time, Maathai was recognized with various awards internationally, but the Kenyan government did not appreciate her work. In 1991 she received the Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco and the Hunger Project's Africa Prize for Leadership in London. CNN aired a three-minute segment about the Goldman prize, but when it aired in Kenya, that segment was cut out. In June 1992, during the long protest at Uhuru Park, both Maathai and President arap Moi travelled to Rio de Janeiro for the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit). The Kenyan government accused Maathai of inciting women and encouraging them to strip at Freedom Corner, urging that she not be allowed to speak at the summit. Despite this, Maathai was chosen to be a chief spokesperson at the summit.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: During the first multi-party election of Kenya, in 1992, Maathai strove to unite the opposition and for fair elections in Kenya. The Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) had fractured into FORD-Kenya (led by Oginga Odinga) and FORD-Asili (led by Kenneth Matiba); former vice president Mwai Kibaki had left the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) party, and formed the Democratic Party. Maathai and many others believed such a fractured opposition would lead to KANU's retaining control of the country, so they formed the Middle Ground Group in an effort to unite the opposition. Maathai was chosen to serve as its chairperson. Also during the election, Maathai and like-minded opposition members formed the Movement for Free and Fair Elections. Despite their efforts, the opposition did not unite, and the ruling KANU party used intimidation and state-held media to win the election, retaining control of parliament.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: The following year, ethnic clashes occurred throughout Kenya. Maathai believed they were incited by the government, who had warned of stark consequences to multi-party democracy. Maathai travelled with friends and the press to areas of violence in order to encourage them to cease fighting. With the Green Belt Movement she planted "trees of peace", but before long her actions were opposed by the government. The conflict areas were labeled as "no go zones", and in February 1993 the president claimed that Maathai had masterminded a distribution of leaflets inciting Kikuyus to attack Kalenjins. After her friend and supporter Dr. Makanga was kidnapped, Maathai chose to go into hiding. While in hiding, Maathai was invited to a meeting in Tokyo of the Green Cross International, an environmental organisation recently founded by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. When Maathai responded that she could not attend as she did not believe the government would allow her to leave the country and she was in hiding, Gorbachev pressured the government of Kenya to allow her to travel freely. President arap Moi denied limiting her travel, and she was allowed to leave the country, although too late for the meeting in Tokyo. Maathai was again recognized internationally, and she flew to Scotland to receive the Edinburgh Medal in April 1993. In May she went to Chicago to receive the Jane Addams International Women's Leadership Award, and in June she attended the UN's World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: During the elections of 1997, Maathai again wished to unite the opposition in order to defeat the ruling party. In November, less than two months before the election, she decided to run for parliament and for president as a candidate of the Liberal Party. Her intentions were widely questioned in the press; many believed she should simply stick to running the Green Belt Movement and stay out of politics. On the day of the election, a rumour that Maathai had withdrawn from the election and endorsed another candidate was printed in the media. Maathai garnered few votes and lost the election.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In the summer of 1998, Maathai learned of a government plan to privatize large areas of public land in the Karura Forest, just outside Nairobi, and give it to political supporters. Maathai protested this through letters to the government and the press. She went with the Green Belt Movement to Karura Forest, planting trees and protesting the destruction of the forest. On 8 January 1999, a group of protesters including Maathai, six opposition MPs, journalists, international observers, and Green Belt members and supporters returned to the forest to plant a tree in protest. The entry to the forest was guarded by a large group of men. When she tried to plant a tree in an area that had been designated to be cleared for a golf course, the group was attacked. Many of the protesters were injured, including Maathai, four MPs, some of the journalists, and German environmentalists. When she reported the attack to the police, they refused to return with her to the forest to arrest her attackers. However, the attack had been filmed by Maathai's supporters, and the event provoked international outrage. Student protests broke out throughout Nairobi, and some of these groups were violently broken up by the police. Protests continued until 16 August 1999, when the president announced that he was banning all allocation of public land.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 2001, the government again planned to take public forest land and give it to its supporters. While protesting this and collecting petition signatures on 7 March 2001, in Wang'uru village near Mount Kenya, Maathai was again arrested. The following day, following international and popular protest at her arrest, she was released without being charged. On 7 July 2001, shortly after planting trees at Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park in Nairobi to commemorate Saba Saba Day, Maathai was again arrested. Later that evening, she was again released without being charged. In January 2002, Maathai returned to teaching as the Dorothy McCluskey Visiting Fellow for Conservation at the Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She remained there until June 2002, teaching a course on sustainable development focused on the work of the Green Belt Movement.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Upon her return to Kenya, Maathai again campaigned for parliament in the 2002 elections, this time as a candidate of the National Rainbow Coalition, the umbrella organisation which finally united the opposition. On 27 December 2002, the Rainbow Coalition defeated the ruling party Kenya African National Union, and in Tetu Constituency Maathai won with an overwhelming 98% of the vote. In January 2003, she was appointed Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources and served in that capacity until November 2005. She founded the Mazingira Green Party of Kenya in 2003 to allow candidates to run on a platform of conservation as embodied by the Green Belt Movement. It is a member of the Federation of Green Parties of Africa and the Global Greens.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Wangarĩ Maathai was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her "contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace." Maathai was the first African woman to win the prestigious award. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". Between 1901 and 2018, only 52 Nobel Prize awards were given to women, while 852 Nobel Prize awards have been given to men. Through her significant efforts, Wangari Maathai became the first African woman, and the first environmentalist, to win the Peace Prize.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Controversy arose when it was reported by Kenyan newspaper "The Standard" that Maathai had claimed HIV/AIDS was "deliberately created by Western scientists to decimate the African population." Maathai denied making the allegations, but "The Standard" has stood by its reports.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In a 2004 interview with "Time" magazine, in response to questions concerning that report, Maathai replied: "I have no idea who created AIDS and whether it is a biological agent or not. But I do know things like that don't come from the moon. I have always thought that it is important to tell people the truth, but I guess there is some truth that must not be too exposed," and when asked what she meant, she continued, "I'm referring to AIDS. I am sure people know where it came from. And I'm quite sure it did not come from the monkeys." In response she issued the following statement:


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Following a trip to Japan in 2005, Maathai became an enthusiastic proponent of the waste-reduction philosophy of "mottainai", a Japanese term of Buddhist origin.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: On 28 March 2005, Maathai was elected the first president of the African Union's Economic, Social and Cultural Council and was appointed a goodwill ambassador for an initiative aimed at protecting the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem. In 2006, she was one of the eight flag-bearers at the 2006 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. Also on 21 May 2006, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by and gave the commencement address at Connecticut College. She supported the International Year of Deserts and Desertification program. In November 2006, she spearheaded the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign. Maathai was one of the founders of the Nobel Women's Initiative along with sister Nobel Peace laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Six women representing North America and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa decided to bring together their experiences in a united effort for peace with justice and equality. It is the goal of the Nobel Women's Initiative to help strengthen work being done in support of women's rights around the world.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In August 2006, then United States Senator Barack Obama traveled to Kenya. His father was educated in America through the same program as Maathai. She and the Senator met and planted a tree together in Uhuru Park in Nairobi. Obama called for freedom of the press to be respected, saying, "Press freedom is like tending a garden; it continually has to be nurtured and cultivated. The citizenry has to value it because it's one of those things that can slip away if we're not vigilant." He deplored global ecological losses, singling out President George W. Bush's refusal to join the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its subsidiary, the Kyoto Protocol.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Maathai was defeated in the Party of National Unity's primary elections for its parliamentary candidates in November 2007 and chose to instead run as the candidate of a smaller party. She was defeated in the December 2007 parliamentary election. She called for a recount of votes in the presidential election (officially won by Mwai Kibaki, but disputed by the opposition) in her constituency, saying that both sides should feel the outcome was fair and that there were indications of fraud.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 2009, she published "The Challenge for Africa" with her insights into the strengths and weaknesses of governance in Africa, her own experiences, and the centrality of environmental protection to Africa's future.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In June 2009, Maathai was named as one of PeaceByPeace.com's first peace heroes. Until her death in 2011, Maathai served on the Eminent Advisory Board of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA).


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Wangarĩ Maathai died on 25 September 2011 of complications arising from ovarian cancer while receiving treatment at a Nairobi hospital.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: Her remains were cremated and buried at the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies in Nairobi.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 2012, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests CPF, an international consortium of 14 organisations, secretariats and institutions working on international forest issues, launched the inaugural Wangarĩ Maathai Forest Champion Award.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 2012, Wangarĩ Gardens opened in Washington, DC. Wangarĩ Gardens is 2.7 acre community garden project for local residents which consists of over 55 garden allotments. This community garden honours the legacy of Wangarĩ Maathai and her mission for community engagement and environmental protection. The Wangarĩ Gardens consist of a community garden, youth garden, outdoor classroom, pollinator hive and public fruit tree orchard, vegetable garden, herb garden, berry garden and strawberry patch. Within the garden complex there are personal garden plots and public gardens. The personal plots are available to residents living within 1.5 miles of the community garden. Personal plot holders are required to contribute 1 hour monthly to the maintenance of the public gardens. The public gardens and orchard are maintained by plot holders and volunteers, and are open to everyone to enjoy and harvest. The Wangarĩ Gardens has no direct affiliation with the Green Belt Movement or the Wangarĩ Maathai Foundation but was inspired by Wangarĩ Maathai and her work and passion for the environment.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: On 25 September 2013, the Wangarĩ Maathai Trees and Garden was dedicated on the lawn of the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning. The memorial includes two red maples symbolizing Maathai's "commitment to the environment, her founding of the Green Belt Movement, and her roots in Kenya and in Pittsburgh" and a flower garden planted in a circular shape that representing her "global vision and dedication to the women and children of the world" with an ornamental maple tree in the middle signifying "how one small seed can change the world".


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 2014, at what would have been her 50-year reunion, her Mount St. Scholastica classmates and Benedictine College unveiled a statue of the Nobel laureate at her alma mater's Atchison, Kansas campus. In 2019, with the renovation of the Westerman Hall of Science and Engineering, the college added a mural of Maathai and other scientists to the front entryway of the building.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In October 2016, Forest Road in Nairobi was renamed to Wangarĩ Maathai Road for her efforts to oppose several attempts to degrade forests and public parks through the Green Belt Movement.


title: Wangari Maathai

text: In 2015, UNESCO published the graphic novel "Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement" as part of their UNESCO Series on Women in African History. As an artistic and visual interpretation intended for private or public use in classrooms, it tells the story of Maathai and the movement she started.


title: Gardening

text: Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits, and herbs, are grown for consumption, for use as dyes, or for medicinal or cosmetic use.


title: Gardening

text: Gardening ranges in scale from fruit orchards, to long boulevard plantings with one or more different types of shrubs, trees, and herbaceous plants, to residential back gardens including lawns and foundation plantings, all the way to container gardens grown inside or outside. Gardening may be very specialized, with only one type of plant grown, or involve a variety of plants in mixed plantings. It involves an active participation in the growing of plants, and tends to be labor-intensive, which differentiates it from farming or forestry.


title: Gardening

text: Forest gardening, a forest-based food production system, is the world's oldest form of gardening. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions. In the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved while undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually foreign species were also selected and incorporated into the gardens.


title: Gardening

text: After the emergence of the first civilizations, wealthy individuals began to create gardens for aesthetic purposes. Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings from the New Kingdom (around 1500 BC) provide some of the earliest physical evidence of ornamental horticulture and landscape design; they depict lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows of acacias and palms. A notable example of ancient ornamental gardens were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World —while ancient Rome had dozens of gardens.


title: Gardening

text: Wealthy ancient Egyptians used gardens for providing shade. Egyptians associated trees and gardens with gods, believing that their deities were pleased by gardens. Gardens in ancient Egypt were often surrounded by walls with trees planted in rows. Among the most popular species planted were date palms, sycamores, fig trees, nut trees, and willows. These gardens were a sign of higher socioeconomic status. In addition, wealthy ancient Egyptians grew vineyards, as wine was a sign of the higher social classes. Roses, poppies, daisies and irises could all also be found in the gardens of the Egyptians.


title: Gardening

text: Assyria was also renowned for its beautiful gardens. These tended to be wide and large, some of them used for hunting game—rather like a game reserve today—and others as leisure gardens. Cypresses and palms were some of the most frequently planted types of trees.


title: Gardening

text: Gardens were also available in Kush. In Musawwarat es-Sufra, the Great Enclosure dated to the 3rd century BC included splendid gardens.


title: Gardening

text: Ancient Roman gardens were laid out with hedges and vines and contained a wide variety of flowers—acanthus, cornflowers, crocus, cyclamen, hyacinth, iris, ivy, lavender, lilies, myrtle, narcissus, poppy, rosemary and violets—as well as statues and sculptures. Flower beds were popular in the courtyards of rich Romans.


title: Gardening

text: The Middle Ages represent a period of decline in gardens for aesthetic purposes. After the fall of Rome, gardening was done for the purpose of growing medicinal herbs and/or decorating church altars. Monasteries carried on a tradition of garden design and intense horticultural techniques during the medieval period in Europe.


title: Gardening

text: Generally, monastic garden types consisted of kitchen gardens, infirmary gardens, cemetery orchards, cloister garths and vineyards. Individual monasteries might also have had a "green court", a plot of grass and trees where horses could graze, as well as a cellarer's garden or private gardens for obedientiaries, monks who held specific posts within the monastery.


title: Gardening

text: Islamic gardens were built after the model of Persian gardens and they were usually enclosed by walls and divided in four by watercourses. Commonly, the centre of the garden would have a reflecting pool or pavilion. Specific to the Islamic gardens are the mosaics and glazed tiles used to decorate the rills and fountains that were built in these gardens.


title: Gardening

text: By the late 13th century, rich Europeans began to grow gardens for leisure and for medicinal herbs and vegetables. They surrounded the gardens by walls to protect them from animals and to provide seclusion. During the next two centuries, Europeans started planting lawns and raising flowerbeds and trellises of roses. Fruit trees were common in these gardens and also in some, there were turf seats. At the same time, the gardens in the monasteries were a place to grow flowers and medicinal herbs but they were also a space where the monks could enjoy nature and relax.


title: Gardening

text: The gardens in the 16th and 17th century were symmetric, proportioned and balanced with a more classical appearance. Most of these gardens were built around a central axis and they were divided into different parts by hedges. Commonly, gardens had flowerbeds laid out in squares and separated by gravel paths.


title: Gardening

text: Gardens in Renaissance were adorned with sculptures, topiary and fountains. In the 17th century, knot gardens became popular along with the hedge mazes. By this time, Europeans started planting new flowers such as tulips, marigolds and sunflowers.


title: Gardening

text: Cottage gardens, which emerged in Elizabethan times, appear to have originated as a local source for herbs and fruits. One theory is that they arose out of the Black Death of the 1340s, when the death of so many laborers made land available for small cottages with personal gardens. According to the late 19th-century legend of origin, these gardens were originally created by the workers that lived in the cottages of the villages, to provide them with food and herbs, with flowers planted among them for decoration. Farm workers were provided with cottages that had architectural quality set in a small garden—about —where they could grow food and keep pigs and chickens.


title: Gardening

text: Authentic gardens of the yeoman cottager would have included a beehive and livestock, and frequently a pig and sty, along with a well. The peasant cottager of medieval times was more interested in meat than flowers, with herbs grown for medicinal use rather than for their beauty. By Elizabethan times there was more prosperity, and thus more room to grow flowers. Even the early cottage garden flowers typically had their practical use—violets were spread on the floor (for their pleasant scent and keeping out vermin); calendulas and primroses were both attractive and used in cooking. Others, such as sweet William and hollyhocks, were grown entirely for their beauty.


title: Gardening

text: In the 18th century, gardens were laid out more naturally, without any walls. This style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps, belts and scattering of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers, were a new style within the English landscape, a "gardenless" form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles. The English landscape garden usually included a lake, lawns set against groves of trees, and often contained shrubberies, grottoes, pavilions, bridges and follies such as mock temples, Gothic ruins, bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape. This new style emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical garden à la française of the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe. The English garden presented an idealized view of nature. They were often inspired by paintings of landscapes by Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin, and some were Influenced by the classic Chinese gardens of the East, which had recently been described by European travelers. The work of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was particularly influential. Also, in 1804 the Horticultural Society was formed.


title: Gardening

text: Gardens of the 19th century contained plants such as the monkey puzzle or Chile pine. This is also the time when the so-called "gardenesque" style of gardens evolved. These gardens displayed a wide variety of flowers in a rather small space. Rock gardens increased in popularity in the 19th century.


title: Gardening

text: In ancient India, patterns from sacred geometry and mandalas were used to design gardens. Distinct mandala patterns denoted specific deities, planets, or even constellations. Such a garden was also referred to as a 'Mandala Vaatika'. The word 'Vaatika' can mean garden, plantation or parterre.


title: Gardening

text: Residential gardening takes place near the home, in a space referred to as the garden. Although a garden typically is located on the land near a residence, it may also be located on a roof, in an atrium, on a balcony, in a window box, on a patio or vivarium.


title: Gardening

text: Gardening also takes place in non-residential green areas, such as parks, public or semi-public gardens (botanical gardens or zoological gardens), amusement parks, along transportation corridors, and around tourist attractions and garden hotels. In these situations, a staff of gardeners or groundskeepers maintains the gardens.


title: Gardening

text: People can express their political or social views in gardens, intentionally or not. The lawn vs. garden issue is played out in urban planning as the debate over the "land ethic" that is to determine urban land use and whether hyper hygienist bylaws (e.g. weed control) should apply, or whether land should generally be allowed to exist in its natural wild state. In a famous Canadian Charter of Rights case, "Sandra Bell vs. City of Toronto", 1997, the right to cultivate all native species, even most varieties deemed noxious or allergenic, was upheld as part of the right of free expression.


title: Gardening

text: People often surround their house and garden with a hedge. Common hedge plants are privet, hawthorn, beech, yew, leyland cypress, hemlock, arborvitae, barberry, box, holly, oleander, forsythia and lavender. The idea of open gardens without hedges may be distasteful to those who enjoy privacy.


title: Gardening

text: The Slow Food movement has sought in some countries to add an edible school yard and garden classrooms to schools, e.g. in Fergus, Ontario, where these were added to a public school to augment the kitchen classroom. Garden sharing, where urban landowners allow gardeners to grow on their property in exchange for a share of the harvest, is associated with the desire to control the quality of one's food, and reconnect with soil and community.


title: Gardening

text: In US and British usage, the production of ornamental plantings around buildings is called "landscaping", "landscape maintenance" or "grounds keeping", while international usage uses the term "gardening" for these same activities.


title: Gardening

text: Also gaining popularity is the concept of "Green Gardening" which involves growing plants using organic fertilizers and pesticides so that the gardening process – or the flowers and fruits produced thereby – doesn't adversely affect the environment or people's health in any manner.


title: Gardening

text: Gardening is considered by many people to be a relaxing activity. There are also many studies about the positive effects on mental and physical health in relation to gardening. Specifically, gardening is thought to increase self-esteem and reduce stress. As writer and former teacher Sarah Biddle notes, one's garden may become a "tiny oasis to relax and recharge [one's] batteries." Involving in gardening activities aid in creativity, observational skills, learning, planning and physical movement.


title: Gardening

text: Others consider gardening to be a good hedge against supply chain disruptions with increased worries that the public cannot always trust that the grocery store shelves will be fully stocked. In April 2022, about 31% of grocery products were out of stock which is an 11% increase from November 2021.


title: Gardening

text: Gardening for beauty is likely nearly as old as farming for food, however for most of history for the majority of people there was no real distinction since the need for food and other useful products trumped other concerns. Small-scale, subsistence agriculture (called hoe-farming) is largely indistinguishable from gardening. A patch of potatoes grown by a Peruvian peasant or an Irish smallholder for personal use could be described as either a garden or a farm. Gardening for average people evolved as a separate discipline, more concerned with aesthetics, recreation and leisure, under the influence of the pleasure gardens of the wealthy. Meanwhile, farming has evolved (in developed countries) in the direction of commercialization, economics of scale, and monocropping.


title: Gardening

text: In respect to its food-producing purpose, gardening is distinguished from farming chiefly by scale and intent. Farming occurs on a larger scale, and with the production of salable goods as a major motivation. Gardening happens on a smaller scale, primarily for pleasure and to produce goods for the gardener's own family or community. There is some overlap between the terms, particularly in that some moderate-sized vegetable growing concerns, often called market gardening, can fit in either category.


title: Gardening

text: The key distinction between gardening and farming is essentially one of scale; gardening can be a hobby or an income supplement, but farming is generally understood as a full-time or commercial activity, usually involving more land and quite different practices. One distinction is that gardening is labor-intensive and employs very little infrastructural capital, sometimes no more than a few tools, e.g. a spade, hoe, basket and watering can. By contrast, larger-scale farming often involves irrigation systems, chemical fertilizers and harvesters or at least ladders, e.g. to reach up into fruit trees. However, this distinction is becoming blurred with the increasing use of power tools in even small gardens.


title: Gardening

text: Monty Don has speculated on an atavistic connection between present-day gardeners and pre-modern peasantry.


title: Gardening

text: The term precision agriculture is sometimes used to describe gardening using intermediate technology (more than tools, less than harvesters), especially of organic varieties. Gardening is effectively scaled up to feed entire villages of over 100 people from specialized plots. A variant is the community garden which offers plots to urban dwellers.


title: Gardening

text: There is a wide range of garden ornaments and accessories available in the market for both the professional gardener and the amateur to exercise their creativity. These are used to add decoration or functionality, and may be made from a wide range of materials such as copper, stone, wood, bamboo, stainless steel, clay, stained glass, concrete, or iron. Examples include trellis, garden furniture, gnomes, statues, outdoor fireplaces, fountains, rain chains, urns, bird baths and feeders, wind chimes, and garden lighting such as candle lanterns and oil lamps. The use of these items can be part of the expression of a gardener's gardening personality.


title: Gardening

text: Garden design is considered to be an art in most cultures, distinguished from gardening, which generally means "garden maintenance". Garden design can include different themes such as perennial, butterfly, wildlife, Japanese, water, tropical, or shade gardens.


title: Gardening

text: In Japan, Samurai and Zen monks were often required to build decorative gardens or practice related skills like flower arrangement known as "ikebana". In 18th-century Europe, country estates were refashioned by landscape gardeners into formal gardens or landscaped park lands, such as at Versailles, France, or Stowe, England. Today, landscape architects and garden designers continue to produce artistically creative designs for private garden spaces. In the US, professional landscape designers are certified by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.


title: Gardening

text: Garden pests are generally plants, fungi, or animals (frequently insects) that engage in activity that the gardener considers undesirable. A pest may crowd out desirable plants, disturb soil, stunt the growth of young seedlings, steal or damage fruit, or otherwise kill plants, hamper their growth, damage their appearance, or reduce the quality of the edible or ornamental portions of the plant. Aphids, spider mites, slugs, snails, ants, birds, and even cats are commonly considered to be garden pests.


title: Gardening

text: Because gardeners may have different goals, organisms considered "garden pests" vary from gardener to gardener. "Tropaeolum speciosum", for example, may be considered a desirable and ornamental garden plant, or it may be considered a pest if it seeds and starts to grow where it is not wanted. As another example, in lawns, moss can become dominant and be impossible to eradicate. In some lawns, lichens, especially very damp lawn lichens such as "Peltigera lactucfolia" and "P. membranacea", can become difficult to control and are considered pests.


title: Gardening

text: There are many ways by which unwanted pests are removed from a garden. The techniques vary depending on the pest, the gardener's goals, and the gardener's philosophy. For example, snails may be dealt with through the use of a chemical pesticide, an organic pesticide, hand-picking, barriers, or simply growing snail-resistant plants.


title: Gardening

text: Pest control is often done through the use of pesticides, which may be either organic or artificially synthesized. Pesticides may affect the ecology of a garden due to their effects on the populations of both target and non-target species. For example, unintended exposure to some neonicotinoid pesticides has been proposed as a factor in the recent decline in honey bee populations. A mole vibrator can deter mole activity in a garden.


title: Gardening

text: Other means of control include the removal of infected plants, using fertilizers and biostimulants to improve the health and vigour of plants so they better resist attack, practising crop rotation to prevent pest build-up, using companion planting, and practising good garden hygiene, such as disinfecting tools and clearing debris and weeds which may harbour pests.


title: Gardening

text: Garden guns are smooth-bore shotguns specifically made to fire .22 caliber snake shot, and are commonly used by gardeners and farmers for pest control. Garden guns are short-range weapons that can do little harm past and are relatively quiet when fired with snake shot, compared to a standard ammunition. These guns are especially effective inside of barns and sheds, as the snake shot will not shoot holes in the roof or walls, or more importantly injure livestock with a ricochet. They are also used for pest control at airports, warehouses, stockyards, etc.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The murder of Suzanne Capper was committed in Greater Manchester, England in December 1992. Sixteen-year-old Suzanne Jane Capper died in Withington Hospital on 18 December 1992, from multiple organ failure arising from 80% burns after being deliberately lit on fire on 14 December. Before her death, Capper related that she had been kidnapped and kept prisoner for seven days at a house in Moston, Manchester, where she was beaten and tortured. Suzanne was taken from the house by car, driven into the countryside, and forced out of the car into a wood at Werneth Low where petrol was poured over her and she was set alight. The torture and murder arose from the "avenging [of] trivial grievances: a sexual insult, infection with pubic lice and the loss of a pink duffel coat."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Detectives conducting the inquiry said that "for sheer mindless brutality" the crime ranked alongside the torture inflicted on children by the Moors murderers. The case went to trial in November 1993, but received "comparatively little publicity" as it coincided with the trial of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables for the murder of James Bulger. On 17 December 1993, Jean Powell, aged 26, her ex-husband Glyn Powell, aged 29, and Bernadette McNeilly, aged 24, were sentenced to life imprisonment for their parts in the murder. Jeffrey Leigh, aged 27, was jailed for twelve years for false imprisonment. Jean Powell's brother Clifford Pook, aged 18, was sentenced to fifteen years in a Young Offenders' Institution for false imprisonment and conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. Anthony Michael Dudson, who was 16 years old at the time of the murder, was also found guilty of murder and sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure under section 53(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Capper, described as "a gentle and easily influenced girl," had been babysat by Jean Powell since she was ten years old. In 1990 she had spent time in the care of the local authority after her mother, Elizabeth Capper, and her stepfather separated, after which Suzanne and her older sister, Michelle, stayed with their stepfather. Around this time Capper began to truant from Moston Brook High School, and her attendance during the final two years of schooling was described as "erratic." Capper increasingly spent her time at Powell's house. Powell lived at 97 Langworthy Road, Moston, a small Victorian terraced house, where she also dealt drugs and was involved with the handling of stolen motor vehicles. Michelle Capper had briefly lived with Powell, but moved out in August 1992 because she did not like the "evil new friends" Powell was associating with, particularly Bernadette McNeilly, who had recently moved in three doors away at number 91. McNeilly, who had three children, subsequently moved in with Powell and her three children, where the two shared a bed in the downstairs dining room because the bedrooms were "full of children." Capper continued to stay regularly even though Powell and McNeilly frequently bullied her. Her sister said: "It was not that she was scared of them, it's just that she would do anything for them. She pampered their every whim."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Powell was separated from her husband Glyn, although the two remained friendly and he would visit regularly from his nearby home. McNeilly's boyfriend was 16-year-old Anthony Dudson, who was also having sexual intercourse with Powell. Powell was sexually involved with Jeffrey Leigh, a regular visitor to the house as a purchaser of amphetamines. Another frequent visitor to the house was Powell's younger brother, Clifford Pook.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: At trial, several reasons were given for Capper's kidnapping: Jean Powell claimed that Capper had tried to persuade her to sleep with a man for money; McNeilly and Dudson had contracted pubic lice which they believed were from a bed that Capper had also used; and McNeilly believed that she had taken a pink duffel coat that belonged to her.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: In November 1992, when Dudson had contracted pubic lice and had his pubic hair shaved, McNeilly told him she thought that he had caught them from Capper. Dudson believed otherwise, and said later: "I told Jean [Powell] I thought I got them from Bernie [McNeilly]." On 7 December 1992, Capper was lured to Jean Powell's home, where Glyn Powell and Dudson were already waiting. She was grabbed as soon as she arrived and held down while Glyn Powell shaved her head and her eyebrows and then made her clean up the hair and place it in a bin. Then he placed a plastic bag over her head and walked around her while hitting her on the head. She was then kicked by Jean Powell and McNeilly as she lay curled up on the floor and both women took turns beating her with a three-foot-long (1 m) wooden instrument and a belt. She was then taken to the bathroom and forced to shave off her own pubic hair as "ritual humiliation in revenge for having caused, as they claimed, Dudson and McNeilly themselves to be shaved." Afterwards Jean Powell locked her in a cupboard overnight.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The following morning Capper was taken upstairs and locked in another cupboard. On 8 December she was transferred to McNeilly's house because of concern that Powell and McNeilly's six children were disturbed by Capper's crying. There she was tied spreadeagle to an upturned bed with electrical flex in a downstairs back room.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Over the next five days Capper was subjected to a series of violent acts, "increasing in severity and brutality as the time passed." She was regularly beaten and injected with amphetamines, burned with cigarettes, and had rave music—in particular "Hi, I'm Chucky (Wanna Play?)" by 150 Volts, featuring samples from the movie "Child's Play"—played at maximum volume through headphones. McNeilly would commence each torture session with the phrase "Chucky's coming to play."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: At some point during the week, Pook and Leigh called at the house and saw Capper, blindfolded and gagged, tied to the bed. By this time, Capper had been lying in her own urine and feces for several days and was placed in a bath containing concentrated disinfectant and scrubbed with a stiff brush with sufficient force to remove skin. Pook then used pliers to extract two of her teeth, which police later found at his house "like some kind of macabre trophy." Dudson said: "I was stood at the doorway with Jeanie [Powell] and Bernie [McNeilly]. Cliff [Pook] took her gag off. He told her to open her mouth. He said: 'Right, I'm going to rip your teeth out'. He started hitting her teeth with the pliers. He got the pliers on and started pulling it out. But it just snapped and chipped. Then he hit them a few more times. He put the pliers on again and really, really pulled. He pulled Suzanne's head forward until there was a snap and he had the tooth in the pliers. He did the same again and he was laughing."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: David Hill, 18, was asked to "sit in" at the house, and while there heard Dudson shouting in the back room. When he asked what was going on, Leigh had shown him Capper. Hill could clearly see evidence of torture and was later left alone with Capper, but did not free her. He said: "She asked me if I could help, but I told her I couldn't. I asked her who she was. She said her name was Suzanne. She asked me if I could untie her. I said I couldn't do anything." Hill later claimed that he was too afraid of Leigh to intervene, saying: "I thought they would batter me. If I'd said [anything] they'd all have got me, wouldn't they? I didn't know what to do. I was too shocked to do anything."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Leigh and Dudson also helped Capper's sister's fiancé, Paul Barlow, repair his car while knowing she was being held and tortured in the house. Barlow said: "They could have told me there and then. The door would have been kicked down and I would have got Suzanne out. I did not think they were capable of such savagery. Now all I want is ten minutes with them in a back room."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The six primary attackers heard that Capper's family was going to report her as a missing person, and so agreed that Capper had to be removed from the house.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: In the early hours of 14 December 1992, Capper was forced into the boot of a stolen white Fiat Panda car and driven 15 miles (25 km) to a narrow lane at Werneth Low, near Romiley, on the outskirts of Stockport. In the car were McNeilly, the Powells and Dudson. McNeilly "giggled" as they made the journey. Powell later said that Capper was pushed down an embankment, into a patch of brambles, where McNeilly poured petrol over her. When McNeilly had difficulty getting the petrol to ignite, Glyn Powell and Dudson made multiple attempts before lighting the girl's body on fire. McNeilly began to sing "Burn baby burn! Burn baby burn!" from The Trammps song "Disco Inferno."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Believing Capper to be dead, the four returned to Jean Powell's house, stopping to buy canned drinks on the way. Both Leigh and Pook were at the house when they arrived.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: After her attackers left, Capper managed to scramble back up the embankment and stagger along the lane for approximately a quarter of a mile (400 metres) to Compstall Road, despite extensive burns. She was found at 06:10 by Barry Sutcliffe and two of his colleagues on their way to work. They immediately took her to a nearby house and roused the residents, Michael and Margaret Coop, to call for an ambulance. Michael Coop said: "Both her hands appeared like ash. Her legs were just like raw meat and her feet appeared to be badly charred. I was struck by how polite the victim was. She was constantly thanking my wife for her assistance." Margaret Coop said: "I instinctively went to put my arms around her but she pulled away because she could not bear to be touched. Her head was shaved and there were recent, not new, cuts to her head. Her face was almost featureless. Her hands were red raw and black at the fingertips. Her legs were red from top to bottom. She couldn't bear anything near her legs."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Capper drank six glasses of water, but was unable to hold the glass herself because of the injuries to her hands. Capper was rushed to the hospital and was able to give the names of her six assailants, as well as Powell's address, before falling into a coma. The extent of her burns was such that her mother and stepfather were unable to recognise her, and she was positively identified by a partial fingerprint from her thumb, the only part of her hands not severely burned. She died on 18 December 1992, without regaining consciousness.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The inquiry into Capper's death was led by Detective Inspector Peter Wall of Greater Manchester Police. At 07:30 on 14 December, he instructed officers to attend 97 Langworthy Road and arrest everyone that they found there. Jean Powell and McNeilly reportedly laughed and joked with each other as they were arrested. Initially, all six denied involvement. Under questioning, Dudson, who had been urged by his father to tell the truth, began to talk.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: D.I. Wall said of Dudson's statement: "As the story began to unfold, we just couldn't believe it. I kept asking myself how one human being could do this to another." Police officers "wept as the extent of Suzanne's suffering was revealed," and together with civilian staff at the station the police collected cash to send flowers to her in hospital.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: On 17 December 1992, the six accused appeared before magistrates in Manchester and were remanded into custody, charged with kidnapping and attempted murder. Following Capper's death, they were charged with her murder on 23 December 1992.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The inquest was opened by Leonard Gorodkin at Manchester Coroner's Court on 8 January 1993. Dr. William Lawler, a Home Office pathologist, testified that Capper had suffered 75–80 percent burns, consistent with having had petrol thrown over her and set alight, and that her chance of survival had been minimal; Lawler said: "It was clear from the outset that Suzanne was unlikely to survive. She suffered widespread burns that led to several complications internally," and that her death was due to complications caused by these burns.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The coroner offered: "It is clear that this young girl must have suffered a great deal of pain and had no chance of survival. But she did fortunately survive long enough to give information which led to the people mentioned being charged with her death." He further directed a statement to Capper's mother and stepfather, saying, "I offer you, not just on my behalf, but on behalf of the whole nation, my very deepest sympathy and condolences at this tragic happening to your young daughter."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The trial commenced on 16 November 1993, and lasted 22 days. All six denied murder and, in their testimonies, each defendant tried to minimise his or her part in the crime.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The jury began their deliberations on 16 December 1993, and took nine hours and fifty-two minutes to reach their verdicts. Mr Justice Potts said: "Each of you has been convicted on clear evidence of murder which was as appalling a murder as it is possible to imagine."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: As the sentences were announced, two jurors wept, and there were cries of "Yes! Yes!" from the public gallery, which was filled with relatives of the victims. In a statement to the press after the sentencing D.I. Wall said: "Psychological Reports say that these are absolutely sane individuals. It's frightening that they are such ordinary people. There is nothing special about any of them."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Leigh appealed against his sentence, which was reduced from 12 years to 9 years on 4 November 1994. In 2002, Dudson's minimum tariff was cut from 18 years to 16 years. Dudson appealed again, arguing that the reduction was insufficient and that the Lord Chief Justice "had failed to reflect the continuing obligation to have regard to Dudson's welfare." Lord Justice Kennedy and Mr Justice Mackay dismissed this second appeal on 21 November 2003. He was moved to an open prison in 2009.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Jean Powell and McNeilly were granted leave to have the lengths of their minimum sentences reviewed at the Court of Appeal in June 2012. McNeilly's sentence was reduced by one year.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: While she was incarcerated at HM Prison Durham, a routine security check in 1996 uncovered letters which revealed McNeilly had been having an affair with the prison governor, Mike Martin. The married officer resigned his position before disciplinary action could be taken. McNeilly, who was sharing a wing with Rosemary West and Myra Hindley, was immediately transferred to HM Prison New Hall.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Leigh was freed early from his sentence in 1998, as was Pook, in May 2001. Both were released on licence.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: McNeilly was paroled in 2015, after having her 25 year minimum cut by one year, and being described as a "model prisoner".


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: There was wide commentary in the news media about the social situation in and around Moston. Writing in "The Times", Jon Ronson focused on Manchester's apparent economic imbalance, pointing out that while "superficially, it is a city of growth"—hosting international environmental conferences in 1993 and bidding to host the 2000 Olympic Games—this could not disguise the realities of the poor quality of "built-to-collapse" housing, the city council's policy on homelessness, poverty, street violence and drug culture, all of which played parts in the events leading up to Capper's murder. The city, he said, had violent "no-go" areas, where "you can expect to be mugged," created through drug abuse and hopelessness, and populated by people who "don't work, have no money, and rarely leave the houses—that they find themselves living in—before dark." Ronson highlighted a city of contrasts, where "expensive canal-side cafes are springing up faster than you can count them; the joke around town is that you can sip cappuccino all day and gaze out at the corpses floating past."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: David Ward, writing in "The Guardian", similarly drew attention to the housing policies, and quoted an older Moston resident as saying: "These people are moving in and out every three months. They're illiterate, half of them—just shagging and having kids."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: "The Daily Mail"—in what Barker and Petley called "ideological overdrive"—described Capper's killers as "the product of a society that tolerates petty crime, the break-up of families and feckless spending... Most of Suzanne's tormentors were on social security ... [and belonged to] an underclass which is a grave threat to Britain's future."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Author Carol Anne Davis agreed that, when looking for answers about how this crime came about, one need only "look at the upbringings of these women, who were single parents to three children by their mid-twenties, had teenage boyfriends who were barely legal, and who supported themselves through drug dealing and theft."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: Davis also noted the unusual situation in that "a gang was involved, and that two females were the sadistic leaders." Following the convictions of Powell and McNeilly, there was wider press speculation about "girl gangs" and the rise in violent crime committed by young women; the "probation service and ex-offender organisations found themselves bombarded with requests from journalists seeking out case histories to illustrate this apparent explosion of LA-style girl-gang culture on the streets of Britain." Mary Barnish, a senior probation officer at the Inner London Probation Service Women's Centre, dismissed the notion, saying: "One woman does something somewhere and immediately there's a great moral panic. People think there's an epidemic of it." However, statistics and research produced by the National Association of Probation Officers did show "an increase in the number of women jailed for offences involving violence." The association's assistant general secretary Harry Fletcher said that, like the women involved in the Capper murder, the group is "characterised by neglect, personal abuse, drug or alcohol abuse and low self-esteem. Many have themselves been the victim of violence. The problem needs help rather than incarceration." In one of the "starkest signs of change" there was "an indication we may face far more female violence in the future as these girls grow up." Despite the focus on the female perpetrators around the time of the crime and trial, Davis pointed out that, in cases like this, which involved female and male sadists, "the female's role is invariably forgotten over time. This was apparent when Dudson's appeals were reported in the national press. Manchester newspapers named all of the killers involved, but most less-localised reports simply referred to the 'violent gang' he belonged to, and it probably wouldn't have occurred to newer readers that this gang included two merciless female sadists who thought that an allegedly stolen duffel coat was an excuse to torture someone to death."


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The moral panic was not confined solely to the gender of the murderers, but also the role played by so-called "video nasties". The news media immediately made a connection between the Bulger murder trial and the Capper murder trial when the horror movie "Child's Play 3" was mentioned as part of the testimonies. D.I. Wall said "throughout interviews with the accused there was no suggestion that the reason Suzanne was killed had anything to do with "Child's Play", but this was overlooked by more sensationalist headlines (""Demonic doll Chucky links the horror crimes""; ""The curse of Chucky""). Neither Powell or McNeilly owned a video recorder, and the "Child's Play"-inspired music that had been used to torture Capper was a popular track at the time, taped direct from Manchester's Piccadilly Radio. Broadcaster David Elstein called the video connection "a false story... branded into the consciousness of the media," and questioned the news media's fascination with the film: "There is no reason to believe that Suzanne Capper would be alive today if the audiotape had instead contained the torture scene from "King Lear", or a catchphrase from Bruce Forsyth ... But the "Child's Play" hare has been running ever since the last day of the James Bulger murder trial." Elstein argued that the film was simply a scapegoat which the press "made a three-course meal out of." "The Guardian" reported that 21,000 four- to nine-year-olds watched each of BSkyB's two transmissions of "Child's Play 3"—but Elstein explained the figure was "simply a projection based on an average of just two actual viewers from BARB's reporting panel, and that the margin of error means even the two may have been just one. But why spoil a good running story by asking what the figures mean?"


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: In April 1994, Professor Elizabeth Newson published "Video Violence and the Protection of Children" (the "Newson Report") which attracted huge media interest due to its claims that it had "definitively established the long sought-for link between screen violence and the real-life variety," and which cited the Capper murder as an example. Despite its support by the press, however, the report failed to demonstrate any definitive link, "merely drawing inferences from ... often highly speculative accounts in the press rather than independent first-hand research." Newson was called to give oral evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on Video Violence, where she asserted: "The Suzanne Capper case is another example of very explicit imitation of video and the use of video and that was "Child's Play 3"." The chairman of the committee, Sir Ivan Lawrence had to point out to Newson that this was incorrect, and that both the police and the British Board of Film Classification had ruled out any connection between the movie and the murder.


title: Murder of Suzanne Capper

text: The link between the murders and "Child's Play 3" by the news media directly led to the delay of the release certification for both "Natural Born Killers" and "Reservoir Dogs".