Wangari Maathai, brief biography
Wangari Muta Maathai (Nyeri, Kenya, 1 April 1940 – Nairobi 25 September 2011) . She was the first woman from central-east Africa to obtain a Degree. She graduated in Biological Sciences at Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964), and then attained a Masters in Science at the University of Pittsburgh (1966), and doctorates in Germany and Nairobi, in veterinary medicine. She became head of the Veterinary Medicine Department at Nairobi University in 1976, and once again she was the first woman to get this post. She was at first an activist then head of the National Council of Women of Kenya from 1976 to 1987, and for this she was labelled a subversive, arrested and tortured.
As part of this experience in politics came the idea of planting trees as a domestic economical measure (to make firewood), for environmental purposes (to curb desertification) and for the emancipation of women: giving women a useful and profitable role, and enhancing their knowledge, promotes them in social terms. In 1976 she founded the Green Belt Movement, which since then has assisted women firstly in Kenya and then across Africa in a unique initiative at global level: more than 30 million trees were planted around cities, schools, and churches. She received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2004 for this campaign. She was the first African woman to receive this honour. "Time" magazine in 2001 asked her what the relationship between peace and the environment was: "Many wars are fought for resources: in the Middle East they are fought for oil and water. Here in Africa, we have minerals, diamonds, land, and timber. What the Nobel Committee is doing is looking ‘beyond’ wars to understand what humanity can do to prevent it. The sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace".
The faces of the shift
