Wangari Muta Maathai (1 April 1940, 25 September 2011) was a Kikuyu environmentalist, feminist, and democracy activist who founded the Green Belt Movement and became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in 2004. Born in Muranga district, she represents the continuity of Kikuyu resistance, from the Mau Mau Uprising's fight for land to a 21st-century fight for the forests and public spaces of Kenya.
Key Facts
- Born in Ihithe village, Nyeri district (historically part of the greater Muranga region), 1 April 1940
- First woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate (University of Nairobi, 1971), a remarkable achievement given the structural barriers to women's education in colonial and post-colonial Kenya
- Founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 under the National Council of Women of Kenya, beginning with a simple idea: pay rural women to plant trees
- By 2011 the Green Belt Movement had planted over 51 million trees across Kenya, a response to deforestation that was also a response to the dispossession of Kikuyu communities from their forested githaka lands (see Githaka)
- The Uhuru Park standoff (1989-1992): Maathai led a successful campaign to prevent the construction of a 62-story office tower and KANU party headquarters in Uhuru (Freedom) Park, Nairobi's main public green space; the outcry, including international pressure, forced President Moi to abandon the project
- Arrested multiple times for her activism; in 1992 she led a hunger strike in Uhuru Park for the release of political prisoners
- Elected to Parliament in 2002 in the constituency of Tetu, Nyeri; served as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources under President Kibaki
- Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on 8 October 2004, the Nobel Committee explicitly linked environmental conservation to democracy and human rights
- Died of ovarian cancer on 25 September 2011
The Kikuyu Thread
Maathai herself drew the connection between forest loss and Kikuyu cultural loss. In her memoir Unbowed (2006), she describes returning to her home region to find the mugumo fig trees gone, the very trees associated with Ngai and Kikuyu spiritual life. Her tree-planting movement was, among other things, a restoration of sacred ecology. The link from Kirinyaga to the Green Belt Movement is direct.
See Also
Related
Muranga | Githaka | Ngai | Kirinyaga | Mau Mau Uprising | Independence 1963 | Ngong Hills | Daniel arap Moi Era | Index