Wangari Maathai, born in 1940 in Kenya, was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her action in favor of the environment, the emancipation of women and ali security.

Wangari Maathai, the woman who planted trees

Audio 03:45

Wangari Maathai in 2010. © REUTERS - Noor Khami

By: Agnès Rougier

12 mins

Wangari Maathai, born in 1940 in Kenya, was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in favor of the environment, women's empowerment and food security.

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Noting that desertification and soil erosion cause famine and poverty for rural Kenya, Wangari Maathai created in 1977 the Green Belt Movement, intended to reforest the land and managed by village women.

It is estimated that more than 50 million trees have been planted since.

Wangari Maathai was born on April 1, 1940 in the village of Ihithe, not far from Nyeri, in the highlands in central Kenya, dominated to the north by the second highest peak in Africa, Mount Kenya.

The parents of Wangari Maathai, Kikuyu peasants - one of Kenya's 42 ethnic groups - "

cultivated a small plot of land and raised a few cows, goats and sheep,

" she later recounted.

The little girl grows up helping her mother with the work in the fields.

Her older brother Nderitu, already in college, suggests that their mother enroll Wangari in school.

At the age of 7, the young student enthusiastically discovered mathematics, Swahili and English taught at the Ihithe school, and she devotes all her free time to her other great passion: the discovery of nature.

When she was 11, her family sent her to Ste Cécile college, at the foot of the Nyeri hills, where she remained until she entered Lycée Loreto-Limuru, in Nairobi, from which she graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology in 1959.

Deforestation and poverty

In 1960, Kenya, a British colony, was on the march towards independence.

The Kenyan political class is busy training a future elite and Wangari Maathai, a brilliant student, receives a scholarship, which allows him to study in the United States with some 300 other young Kenyans.

From Kansas to Pennsylvania, she went to Germany then joined the University of Nairobi in veterinary medicine, where she obtained her doctorate in 1971: she was the first in East Africa.

A university teacher, Wangari Maathai fights against gender discrimination and obtains equal pay.

In 1977, the young woman was appointed professor.

During her years of field research, Wangari Maathai finds that deforestation causes soil erosion and the degradation of rivers, which together threaten the health of herds, agriculture and consequently the health of populations.

In 1977, at the congress of the National Council of Women of Kenya - NCWK of which she is a member - a survey presented confirms her observations: everywhere, women in rural areas lack wood, water and food resources.

Plant trees, sow ideas

“

I analyzed the problems, understood their origin, remained to find solutions

(…)

the answer was obvious: to plant trees;
but who would plant trees by the thousands?
Women, of course!

», Writes Wangari Maathai in his autobiography.

In 1977, the Green Belt Movement or GBM was born, led by women and with the support of the NCWK.

On June 5, 1977, Earth Day, the first seven trees were planted in a Nairobi park, in front of several hundred women and government officials.

The first years were chaotic, for lack of experience and money, but the Movement took off in 1981, when the United Nations Development Fund for Women granted a grant and international recognition.

The future of the planet concerns us all and it is everyone's duty to protect it

writes Wangari Maathai, (…)

and when we plant trees, we also sow ideas

”.

Ecology and democracy

From the 1980s, aware that environmental issues were linked to governance, peace and human rights, Wangari Maatai relied on the Green Belt Movement to fight against the abuses of political power.

In 1989, the activist mobilized with the citizens of Nairobi against the authorities - supported by the head of state Daniel Arap Moi - who planned to suppress the Uhuru park, the capital's green lung, by building a tower.

After three years of battles, the project was abandoned.

In 1992, while she was an activist in the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), Wangari Maathai was arrested and thrown in prison and she owed her release to numerous supporters from abroad, in recognition of her work for the green belt.

When in 2002, Kenya elected its new president, Mwai Kibaki, Wangari Maathai was also elected MP.

Convinced that in order to eradicate poverty, the management of natural resources must be improved, the activist created the green party Mazingira in early 2003.

Wangari Maathai will hold the post of Minister for the Environment from January 2003 to November 2005.

First African Nobel Prize

On October 4, 2004, Professor Maathai picked up his cell phone, it was a call from Norway: the president of the Nobel committee, Ole Danbolt Mjos, announced to him that he had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

She is the first African woman to receive it.

I am really very proud and in my eyes, it is not only me that is being rewarded, I have the feeling that the world rewards our work, because through me, it is Africa and it is is the African woman who is rewarded

”, she will declare shortly after at the microphone of RFI.

From then on, tireless, the Nobel laureate takes on her responsibility as spokesperson and travels the world, from the Copenhagen conference to the Grenelle de l'Environnement, via Haiti and Japan.

To assist her, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) delegated Serge Bounda: “

She had a holistic vision of the planet (…) As the first president of the African Union's economic and social council, she pushed the human rights and environmental agenda further (…).
She was a woman of the people who understood the leaders, who had a sense of challenges and responsibilities,

”he recounts.

Heritage trees

On September 25, 2011, Wangari Maathai passed away.

Out of respect for the environment, so as not to cut a tree, she is, as she wished, cremated in a coffin made of lianas and bamboo.

The ideas and work of Professor Maathai are still bearing fruit today.

At the dawn of the 21st century, the Green Belt Movement - now international - had helped create more than 6,000 nurseries, managed by 600 community networks, with several hundred thousand volunteers.

UNESCO puts forward the figure of 50,000 trees planted since the creation of the Movement.

Serge Bounda remembers: “

For her, it was not possible to end an event without planting trees!

The woman who planted trees

Find out more

The one who plants the trees
, Wangari Muta Maathai, I read editions, 2006
A challenge for Africa
, Wangari Muta Maathai, Héloise d'Ormesson editions, 2010
Repair the Earth
, Wangari Muta Maathai, Héloise d'Ormesson editions, 2012
Green belt movement
United Nations Environment Program

Remarkable environmentalists, portraits - Wangari Maathai, the woman who planted trees

Wangari Maathai, the woman who planted trees

Deforestation and poverty

Plant trees, sow ideas

Ecology and democracy

First African Nobel Prize

Heritage trees

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