Founder of Green Belt Movement Dies
Professor Wangari Muta Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement and an environmentalist, activist and former parliamentarian, has died
aged 71.
She started the Green Belt Movement in 1977, working with women to improve their livelihoods by increasing their access to resources like firewood for cooking and clean water. The movement has since mobilized hundreds of thousands of women and men to plant more than 47 million trees. Image by Martin Rowe.
She became an advocate for better management of natural resources and for sustainability, equity, and justice. She was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work for sustainable development, democracy, and peace—the first African woman and the first environmentalist to receive this honor.
In the 1970s Professor Maathai became active in a number of environmental and humanitarian organizations in Nairobi. Through her work representing women academics she spoke to rural women and learned from them about the deteriorating environmental and social conditions affecting poor, rural Kenyans - especially women. She heard that they lacked firewood for cooking and heating, that clean water was scarce, and nutritious food was limited.
Professor Maathai suggested to them that planting trees might be an answer. The trees would provide wood for cooking, fodder for livestock, and material for fencing; they would protect watersheds and stabilize the soil, improving agriculture. This was the beginning of the Green Belt Movement.
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Posted: 27/09/2011