Biography

Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya, in 1940, the daughter of farmers in the highlands of Mount Kenya. The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree, Professor Maathai obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964). She subsequently earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966). She pursued doctoral studies in Germany and the University of Nairobi, obtaining a Ph.D. (1971) from the University of Nairobi, where she also taught veterinary anatomy. She became chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an associate professor in 1976 and 1977 respectively. She was the first woman in the region to attain those positions.

Wangari Maathai served in the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976-87 and was its chairman from 1981-87. She introduced her tree-planting concept to ordinary citizens in 1976. Professor Maathai went on to develop it into the Green Belt Movement, a broad-based, grassroots organization whose main focus is helping women’s groups plant trees to conserve the environment and improve quality of life. Through the Green Belt Movement, she now has helped women plant more than 30 million trees on their farms, on schools, and on church compounds.

In 2006, French President Jacques Chirac awarded Wangari Maathai France’s highest honor, the Legion d’Honneur. The decoration ceremony took place in Paris in April 2006 and was presided over by the French Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Nelly Olin. Wangari Maathai rose to prominence fighting for those most easily marginalised in Africa - poor women.

The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize was praised by the awarding committee as "a source of inspiration for everyone in Africa fighting for sustainable development, democracy and peace". A pioneering academic, her role as an environmental campaigner began after she planted some trees in her back garden.

This inspired her in 1977 to form an organisation - primarily of women - known as the Green Belt Movement aiming to curtail the devastating effects of deforestation and desertification. Her desire was to produce sustainable wood for fuel use as well as combating soil erosion.

Her campaign to mobilise poor women to plant some 30 million trees has been copied by other countries.

The Green Belt Movement went on to campaign on education, nutrition and other issues important to women.

Mrs Maathai has been arrested several times for campaigning against deforestation in Africa.

In the late 1980s, she became a prominent opponent of a skyscraper planned for the middle of the Kenyan capital's main park - Uhuru Park.

She was vilified by President Daniel arap Moi's government but succeeded in thwarting the plans.

More recently, she evolved into a leading campaigner on social matters.

Once was beaten unconscious by heavy handed police. On an other occasion she led a demonstration of naked women.

In 1997, she ran for president against Mr Moi but made little impact.