Maathai, Wangari Muta
[key], 1940–2011, 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). 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 conservation effort that encourages ordinary Kenyan
women to plant trees to counter erosion, deforestation, and other
environmental ills amassed during the colonial era, 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 advocated the cancellation of
African foreign debt. In 2002 she was elected to Kenya's national assembly
and was named assistant environmental minister in 2003, but later left
government. One of Africa's most celebrated activists, she became the first
African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her leadership role
in the Green Belt Movement.
See her The Green Belt Movement (1985, rev. ed. 2003), The Canopy of
Hope: My Life Campaigning for Africa, Women, and the
Environment (2002), Unbowed (2006), and
Replenishing the Earth (2010). See also E. M. Mutua et
al., ed. The Rhetorical Legacy of Wangari Maathai: Planting the
Future (2018), T. Kanogo, Wangari Maathai
(2020), and B. B. Muhonja, Radical Utu: Critical Ideas and Ideals of
Wangari Muta Maathai (2020).
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