Maathai, Wangari Muta

Maathai, Wangari Muta (wän-gä`rē mātī`), 1940–, Kenyan environmental activist; studied Mount St. Scholastica (now Benedictine) College (B.S., 1964), Univ. of Pittsburgh (M.S., 1966), Univ. of Nairobi (Ph.D., 1971); she was the first woman in E Africa to earn a doctorate. She taught at her Nairobi alma mater, becoming head of its veterinary anatomy department in 1977. While active (1976–87) in the National Council of Women of Kenya, she initiated (1977) the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots group that encourages ordinary Kenyan women to plant trees to counter erosion, deforestation, and other environmental ills, to provide sustainable fuel, and to empower themselves. (Tens of millions of trees have been planted.) The group also sponsors initiatives on women's rights, education, and other issues. Maathai, who strongly opposed Kenya's President Moi, also has advocated the cancellation of African foreign debt. In 2002 she was elected to Kenya's national assembly in 2002 and in 2003 became assistant environmental minister. She became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

Bibliography

See her The Green Belt Movement (1985, rev. ed. 2003), The Canopy of Hope: My Life Campaigning for Africa, Women, and the Environment (2002), and Unbowed (2006).