Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist who founded the Green Belt Movement, an organisation fighting to conserve the environment and campaign for women’s rights. She was the first African women to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights, and women’s rights in particular”.

Maathai was born in 1940 in the village of Ihithe, Nyeri District, in the central highlands of Kenya, which was then a British colony. At the age of 8, she began attending the local primary school, despite the fact that it was uncommon for girls to be educated at the time. She was first in her class, and this enabled her to continue her education at the Loreto Girls’ High School, and won a scholarship in 1960 to attend college in the United States. Maathai graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology from Mount St. Scholastica College (now Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas in 1964. She then completed a master’s degree in biological sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Maathai then returned to Kenya, where worked as a research assistant at the University of Nairobi. In 1967, she began studying for a doctorate at the University of Giessen in Germany and the University of Munich. She returned to Nairobi to take on a position as an assistant lecturer at the University College of Nairobi and finish her doctorate. In 1971, she became the first woman in East Africa to earn a doctorate degree. She then took a position teaching veterinary anatomy. In 1976 she became the chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and a year later became an associate professor. She was the first woman in both positions in the region. During her time at the university, she successfully campaigned for equal pay for women on the staff of the university.

Maathai was involved in a number of organisations in the early 1970’s, including the Nairobi branch of the Kenya Red Cross Society, which she became the director of in 1973. A year later, she became a member of the local board of the Environmental Liaison Centre, rising to become board chair. From 1976 – 1987 Maathai was active in the National Council of Women of Kenya, serving as chair from 1981–1987. During this time, she came up with the idea of community-based tree planting in order to reduce poverty – specifically in women – and conserve the environment. In 1977, she set up the Green Belt Movement (GBM) which provided tree planting jobs for women, addressing both an environmental, and a financial problem at once. The GBM is responsible for the planting of more than 30 million trees in Kenya and providing roughly 30,000 women with new skills and opportunities.

In 1979, Maathai ran for the position of chairperson of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). The President at the time, Daniel arap Moi was determined that those of Kikuyu ethnicity would not be put in positions of power, and as a result, she lost the election. A year later, she ran again and this time she won, leading Daniel arap Moi to divert funds to Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, a member organisation which supported the President. This lead to the NCWK becoming almost bankrupt, although Maathai continued to lead and focus on conserving the environment and raising awareness of the NCWK.

In 1986, following the third global women’s conference in Nairobi where Maathai presented the impact of the work that she GBM had been doing in Kenya, she gained enough support to establish the movement outside of Kenya. The Pan-African Green Belt Movement was founded with the support of both the Norwegian Forestry Society and the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Women. A year later, Maathai resigned her position as chairperson of the NCWK to focus on the GBM as the government felt that the two should be separate, as NCWK should only focus on women’s issues. The GBM attracted a huge amount of attention for its work, and Maathai was honoured with a number of awards.

In the late 1980’s, the Kenyan government began to target Maathai and the GBM. In 1988, the GBM worked to register voters for the election and fought for constitutional reform and freedom of expression following the Kenyan government bringing back a colonial-era law which prohibited groups of more than nine people meeting without a government license. In 1989, Maathai led a protest against the construction of a skyscraper in Nairobi’s Uluru Park which led to President Moi stating that she should “be a proper woman in the African tradition and respect men and be quiet.” and that those to objected to the project had “insects in their heads”. Maathai was forced to leave her office, and the GBM had to operate from her home. The government then audited the GBM in an attempt to shut it down. Maathai was ultimately successful, as the media coverage of her protest led to foreign investors cancelling the project.

In 1992, Maathai was targeted for assassination due to her pro-democracy activism. Despite barricading herself into her home, the police eventually arrested her and charged her with spreading malicious rumours, sedition and treason. Following pressure from a range of international organisations and eight U.S. senators, the charged were dropped to avoid damaging relations with the U.S. A month later, Maathai and other activists took part in a corner of Uhuru Park, which they called Freedom Corner to call for the release of political prisoners. Four days later, they were forcibly removed by the police who knocked Maathai unconscious, leading to her hospitalisation. That same year, the first multi-party election was held in Kenya. Maathai and others who shared her ideals formed the Middle Ground Group, for which Maathai was chairperson as well as the Movement for Free and Fair Elections. Despite this, the opposition did not unite and the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) party retained control.

In 1993, Maathai travelled to Scotland to receive the Edinburgh Medal, Chicago to receive the Jane Addams International Women’s Leadership Award and attended the UN’s World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. Although the opposition tried to defeat the KANU party in the next few elections, it wasn’t until 2002 that the KANU party lost. During that time, Maathai had been targeted by the government, forced into hiding, arrested and lies had been printed about her in the media. In Tetu constituency, Maathai won an overwhelming 98% of the vote, and a year later she was appointed Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources. That same year, she founded the Mazingira Green Party of Kenya which is a member of the Federation of Green Parties of Africa and the Global Greens.

In 2004, Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”. A year later, she was elected the first president of the African Union’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council and was appointed a goodwill ambassador for an initiative aimed at protecting the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem. In 2006, she spearheaded the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign and was one of the co-founders of the Nobel Women’s Initiative. In 2007, Maathai was defeated in a parliamentary election which she felt was fraudulent and called for a recount. In 2009, she was named one of PeaceByPeace.com’s first peace heroes and in 2010 she became a trustee of the Karura Forest Environmental Education Trust and founded the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies (WMI) in association with the University of Nairobi. She served on the Eminent Advisory Board of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA) until her death in 2011. A year later, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests launched the Wangari Maathai Award to honour and commemorate an extraordinary woman who championed forest issues around the world. Her work is continued by the The Wangari Maathai Foundation (WMF) and the GBM.

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