She was the founder of the Green Belt Movement and is a 2004 Nobel Peace
Prize Laureate.
Wangari Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt Movement and the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She authored four books: The Green Belt Movement; Unbowed: A Memoir; The Challenge for Africa; and Replenishing the Earth. As well as having been featured in a number of books, she and the Green Belt Movement were the subject of a documentary film, Taking Root: the Vision of Wangari Maathai (Marlboro Productions, 2008).
Wangari
Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, a rural area of Kenya (Africa), in
1940. She obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St.
Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964), a Master of Science
degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966), and pursued doctoral
studies in Germany and the University of Nairobi, before obtaining a
Ph.D. (1971) from the University of Nairobi, where she also taught
veterinary anatomy. The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a
doctorate degree, Professor Maathai became chair of the Department of
Veterinary Anatomy and an associate professor in 1976 and 1977
respectively. In both cases, she was the first woman to attain those
positions in the region.
Professor Maathai was active in the
National Council of Women of Kenya (1976–1987) and was its chairman
(1981–1987). In 1976, while she was serving in the National Council of
Women, Professor Maathai introduced the idea of community-based tree
planting. She continued to develop this idea into a broad-based
grassroots organisation, the Green Belt Movement (GBM), whose main focus
is poverty reduction and environmental conservation through tree
planting.
Professor Maathai was internationally acknowledged for her struggle for democracy, human rights, and environmental conservation, and served on the board of
many organisations. She addressed the UN on a number of occasions and
spoke on behalf of women at special sessions of the General Assembly
during the five-year review of the Earth Summit. She served on the
Commission for Global Governance and the Commission on the Future.
Professor
Maathai represented the Tetu constituency in Kenya’s parliament
(2002–2007), and served as Assistant Minister for Environment and
Natural Resources in Kenya’s ninth parliament (2003–2007). In 2005, she
was appointed Goodwill Ambassador to the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem by
the eleven Heads of State in the Congo region. The following year,
2006, she founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative with
her sister laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta MenchĂș Tum,
Betty Williams, and Mairead Corrigan. In 2007, Professor Maathai was
invited to be co-chair of the Congo Basin Fund, an initiative by the British and the Norwegian governments to help protect the Congo forests.
In recognition of her deep commitment to the environment, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General named Professor Maathai a UN Messenger of Peace in
December 2009, with a focus on the environment and climate change. In
2010 she was appointed to the Millennium Development Goals Advocacy
Group: a panel of political leaders, business people and activists
established with the aim to galvanise worldwide support for the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Also in 2010, Professor Maathai became a trustee of the Karura Forest Environmental Education Trust,
established to safeguard the public land for whose protection she had
fought for almost twenty years. That same year, in partnership with the
University of Nairobi, she founded the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies (WMI).
The WMI will bring together academic research—e.g. in land use,
forestry, agriculture, resource-based conflicts, and peace studies—with
the Green Belt Movement approach and members of the organisation.
Professor
Maathai died on 25 September 2011 at the age of 71 after a battle with
ovarian cancer. Memorial ceremonies were held in Kenya, New York, San
Francisco, and London.
Professor Maathai died on 25 September 2011 at the age of 71 after a
battle with ovarian cancer. Memorial ceremonies were held in Kenya, New
York, San Francisco, and London.
Image/bio credit: Commons/Wikipedia
Wangari Muta Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011), was a Kenyan environmental and political activist. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya. In the 1970s, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women’s rights.
In 1986, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, and in 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” Maathai was an elected member of Parliament and served as assistant minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005. Furthermore she was an Honorary Councillor of the World Future Council. In 2011, Maathai died of complications from ovarian cancer.
Rest in Peace Wangari. You will never be forgotten, a role model,
inspiration, and change agent . We should be inspired by her
contribution, to effect positive changes in our various industries.
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