African Woman and Child Feature Service

As the curtains fell on Nobel Laureate Prof Wangari Maathai’s illustrious career and accomplished life, her legacy will be felt far and wide in the environment, thanks to the over 45 million trees, more than the population of Kenya, from the Green Belt Movement that have been planted in Kenya and parts of Africa to provide fuel, food, shelter, and income to support the members’ children’s education and household needs.

The activity has created employment and improved soils and watersheds.

Despite her international fame, influence, clout and wealth, Prof Maathai was always humble, accessible and a staunch defender of the down trodden and the environment, which she always had a passion for.

On October 6, 2010, Prof Maathai was among the three women who received the International Freedom Award from National Civil Rights Museum. It was the first time that the museum had named three women as winners of the annual awards.

Other than Prof Maathai the other two were actress Eva Longoria and civil rights pioneer Dorothy Cotton.

That was just but one of the many recognition she received.

Ever since she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Maathai become a global figure, but the long walk to celebrity status was not a bed of roses and did not get into her head.

Kenyans will always remember her for storming Karura Forest, on the outskirts of Nairobi, to lead environmentalists and human rights activists to stop the grabbing and destruction of the forest by the politically connected personalities in the Moi regime. She wanted them to replace the trees with buildings.

The former University of Nairobi professor had to face off with riot policemen who lobed tear gas at her.

During the midday bloody commotion she was not only roughed up by the riot police, but she also had her dreadlocks physically plucked off in the full glare of the media.

Maathai had been a household name in Kenya for what was seen by the ruling party Kanu, and its leader Daniel arap Moi as bad reasons. Her name hit the headlines earlier when she filed a case against the President protesting his plans to hive off a big chunk of Uhuru Park to build a 30-storey building to house the headquarters of his party, Kanu’s newspaper, Kenya Times.

The then powerful President was so incensed by the legal action that he announced, soon after arrival from a foreign trip, that the case “is not going to go anywhere” and used abusive words against Maathai.

The don did not relent and joined women and mothers of detained political prisoners who had stripped naked at Uhuru Park’s Freedom corner to protest against the dictatorial regime of Moi and his Kanu party.

Maathai is a woman of many firsts both locally and internationally. She was the first African woman to win the coveted Nobel Peace prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

In her recognition, it was said she represents a source of inspiration for everyone in Africa fighting for sustainable development, democracy and peace. Kenyans celebrated saying that she deserved the honour.

Maathai also made a stab at State House in 1997, to join Kitui Central MP, Charity Ngilu, being the first women to vie for the presidency but they both lost.

That good news came two years after Tetu voters in Nyeri district, elected her to represent them in her second attempt. President Kibaki appointed her as an Assistant minister for Environment and Natural Resources.

Maathai was born in Nyeri, in 1940. She obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964). She subsequently earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966), making her the first Kenyan woman to graduate with a Masters degree in Biological sciences.

She pursued doctoral studies in Germany and the University of Nairobi, obtaining a PhD (1971) from the University of Nairobi where she also taught veterinary anatomy, being the first woman in Africa to get a doctorate on the subject.

She was also active in the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976-1987 and was its chairman in 1981 to 1987.

She started the Greenbelt Movement started in 1977 with about 3,000 tree nurseries and to date it has seen more than 45 million trees planted to improve Kenya’s ecosystem.

More than 100,000 women have been involved.

Maathai served on the boards of several organisations including the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament.

She has addressed the UN on several occasions and spoke on behalf of women at special sessions of the General Assembly for the five-year review of the earth summit.

She was a delegate to the historic National Constitutional Review Conference at Bomas of Kenya as an MP, and chaired the committee on culture, which came up with the bulk of what was adopted by Kenyans during the 2010 August referendum that is in the new Constitution.

In her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, in Oslo, Norway Maathai had said: “I stand before you and the world humbled by this recognition and uplifted by the honour of being the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate. As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa, and indeed the world. I am especially mindful of women and the girl child. I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership. I know the honour also gives a deep sense of pride to our men, both old and young. As a mother, I appreciate the inspiration this brings to the youth and urge them to use it to pursue their dreams.”

Her fellow African Peace laureates, Presidents Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the late Chief Albert Luthuli, the late Anwar el-Sadat and the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.

Other than the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Maathai has been honoured so many times that she no longer cares to count.

In June 1997, Maathai was elected by Earth Times as one of 100 persons in the world who have made a difference in the environmental arena.

In April 2009, Maathai made history by being the first ever Kenyan to receive Japan's highest honour, the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. Maathai's campaign, which stresses the concept of reduce, re-use, recycle and repair for environmental protection, has made her popular in Japan.

Her dream of having a green world takes precedence.

The Laureate’s inspiration for protecting land partly came from her childhood experiences and observations of nature in rural Kenya, which was influenced and nurtured by the formal education she was privileged to receive locally, in the United States and Germany.

As she was growing up, she witnessed forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations, which destroyed local biodiversity and the capacity of the forests to conserve water.

Prof Maathai is no more but her legacy lives on, thanks to the Green Belt Movement, whose mandate is to respond to needs identified by rural women, namely lack of firewood, clean drinking water, balanced diets, shelter and income.

Odhiambo Orlale is a media consultant in Kenya