Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) was a Kenyan environmental and political campaigner. She became the first woman in East and Central Africa to gain a doctorate, receiving a PhD from the University of Nairobi in 1971. Through her Green Belt Movement, which she founded in 1977, she encouraged women’s groups to plant millions of trees across Kenya. She was elected to Kenya's National Assembly in 2002 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her “contribution to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women's rights in particular."

Early life

Wangari Maathai was born Wangari Muta in 1940 in the village of Ihithe, Nyeri District, in the central highlands of Kenya, then part of British East Africa. Her family was Kikuyu, the most populous ethnic group in Kenya. Around 1943, Wangari's family moved to a white-owned farm in the Great Rift Valley near Nakuru. At the age of 8, she returned to Ihithe to go to school, later moving to St Cecilia's boarding school in Nyeri. A bright student, Wangari became one of some 300 Kenyans selected to study in the United States in September 1960. After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1964, she studied at the University of Pittsburgh for a master's degree in biology. Returning to Kenya in 1966, she got a job as a research assistant at the University College of Nairobi.

Campaigner

Through her work at various volunteer associations, Maathai came to realise the root of most of Kenya's problems was the degradation of its environment. Through her Green Belt Movement, which she founded in 1977, she encouraged women’s groups to plant more than 20 million trees across Kenya. In 1980, she was elected chair of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK), a body to which many women's organizations across Kenya belonged. She served as chair until 1987.
​​​​​​​

An outspoken critic of Daniel arap Moi, Kenya's president from 1978 to 2002, Maathai campaigned on a range of issues and was arrested many times. In 1989, she staged a protest in Nairobi's Uhuru Park to prevent the construction of a skyscraper. Her actions helped cause the project to be dropped. The place in where she demonstrated came to be known as "Freedom Corner." The following year, Maathai was beaten and injured by police at another protest in which she called for the release of political prisoners.

Nobel prize

At a time when elections in Kenya were not regarded as free and fair (until 1992, Kenya was a one-party state) Maathai campaigned for fair elections in Kenya and strove to unite opposition parties in order to feat the ruling party. After several failed attempts, in 2002 Maathai was finally elected as member of the parliament of Kenya. She ran as a candidate of the National Rainbow Coalition and won her constituency with 98% of the vote. Between January 2003 and November 2005 she served as the assistant minister for environment and natural resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki. In 2004 Wangari Maathai became the first black African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”.
​​​​​​​

Last years

Maathai continued to support environmental causes, spearheading the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign in 2006. She also supported women's causes, becoming one of the founders of the Nobel Women's Initiative, along with five Nobel prizewinning women from other continents, whose goal was to help strengthen work being done in support of women's rights around the world.

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