Prof. Wangari Mathaai

Prof. Wangari Muta Maathai was born on April 1, 1940 in Ihithe village, Tetu division, Nyeri District of Kenya.

She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree and obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas in 1964.

In January 1966, Maathai completed her studies at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a Master of Science in Biological Sciences, and was appointed to a position as research assistant to a professor of zoology at University College of Nairobi.

In 2004 she became the first African woman, and the first environmentalist, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”

Maathai was an elected member of Parliament and served as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005. She is of Kikuyu ethnicity.

She single-handedly thwarted attempts to grab Uhuru Park, Nairobi's only green park (in order to construct a 62-storey building) and Karura Forest and has planted more than 30 million trees since the inception of her Green Belt Movement in 1977.

Although she was assaulted and jailed by the oppressive Moi regime, her decades' old struggle to protect Kenya's remaining forests earned her the world's most prestigious accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize.