Wangari Maathai
Wangari Maathai was a prominent Kenyan environmentalist and social activist recognized for her significant contributions to combating deforestation both in Africa and globally. Born in 1940, she was the daughter of subsistence farmers and became the first woman in central and eastern Africa to earn a PhD in 1971. Her early education in the United States and Germany influenced her passion for environmental issues, particularly the link between poverty and deforestation upon her return to Kenya. In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, which aimed to plant trees and promote environmental awareness, ultimately exceeding its initial goal of fifteen million trees. Maathai's activism extended to political realms, where she faced opposition and imprisonment but continued to advocate for environmental justice. In 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts. Maathai's legacy is enduring, with initiatives like the Billion Tree Campaign and the establishment of March 3 as Wangari Maathai Day, celebrating her commitment to environmental sustainability. She passed away in 2011, but her impact continues through ongoing conservation efforts led by her family and supporters.
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Wangari Maathai
IDENTIFICATION: Kenyan environmentalist and social activist
A visionary and activist in the fight against deforestation in Africa and beyond, Maathai spearheaded various initiatives that have resulted in the planting of billions of trees and have brought global attention to this critical environmental issue.
Even before she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) was well known for the positive impacts of her efforts to raise environmental awareness, particularly in regard to the issue of deforestation. Born Wangari Muta, Maathai grew up in Kenya as the daughter of subsistence farmers. She received scholarships that enabled her to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biological science in the United States, and she also spent some time studying in Germany.
Upon her return to Kenya, Maathai studied anatomy at the University of Nairobi, but her interests turned to the intertwined issues of poverty and deforestation, partly because she realized how much the practice of had changed Kenya’s landscape in her absence. In 1969 she married Mwangi Mathai, with whom she would eventually have three children, and in 1971 she became the first woman in central and eastern Africa to earn a PhD. Her husband became politically active, and in 1974 he campaigned for a seat in the Kenyan parliament. In part to help him keep a campaign promise to create new jobs, Maathai founded a business called Envirocare, which paid people to raise tree seedlings in nurseries for eventual transplantation across Kenya. Maathai’s progressive political views strained her marriage, however, and Mwangi Mathai eventually sued for divorce. When the marriage ended, he asserted his legal right to demand that she change her surname, and, as she relates in her memoir, Unbowed (2006), instead of changing her surname completely Maathai instead chose to insert an extra a.
Maathai’s personal difficulties did not lessen her desire to have a positive influence on environmental outreach and activism. In 1977, Maathai renamed Envirocare the Green Belt Movement and gained the support of Kenya’s National Council of Women. The organization adopted the motto of “One person, one tree,” which led to the goal of planting fifteen million trees, one for each person in Kenya. The group far exceeded the goal, planting more than twice that number of trees by the early twenty-first century.
At the same time, Maathai expanded her activities into other areas of the environmental movement. She successfully campaigned against the building of a planned skyscraper in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park and opposed the government’s attempts to sell valuable forestland to developers. Her work met with much opposition and she was imprisoned several times, but her international influence increased to the point that it became difficult for the authorities to detain her without cause.
In 2002, Maathai was elected to Kenya’s parliament, and she was appointed the following year to the post of assistant minister of the environment, natural resources, and wildlife. Her tireless work was recognized worldwide when she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Maathai then helped the United Nations Environment Programme launch the Billion Tree Campaign. The campaign’s initial goal of planting one billion trees was reached more quickly than expected, and a new goal of planting more than seven billion trees by the end of 2009 was also exceeded. The significance of Maathai’s contribution and inspiration to this campaign, which was carried out by workers and volunteers in more than 170 counties, is clear.
She died in 2011 of complications from ovarian cancer. Others, including her daughter, Wanjira Mathai, continued her work. Since 2012, March 3, Africa Environment Day, has also been celebrated as Wangari Maathai Day.
Bibliography
Gettleman, Jeffrey. "Wangari Maathai, Peace Prize Laureate, Dies at 71." New York Times 27 Sept. 2011: 25. Print.
"In Memory of Wangari Maathai." Development 55.1 (2012): 148–49. Print.
Maathai, Wangari. The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. Rev. ed. New York: Lantern Books, 2003.
Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
Scott, Keturah. "Peace Profile: Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement." Peace Review 25.2 (2013): 299–306. Print.
Obonyo, Raphael. "'The Legacy of Wangari Maathai Continues.'" United Nations, 3 Mar. 2022, www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/march-2021/%E2%80%98-legacy-wangari-maathai-continues%E2%80%99. Accessed 19 July 2024.