Wangari Maathai
Biologist who turned reforestation into a national method
At a glance
- Inventor
- Wangari Maathai
- Life
- 1940–2011
- Birthplace
- Nyeri, Kenya
- Country
- Kenya
- Region
- Africa
- Era
- 1950–2000
- Fields
- Agriculture, Science & Engineering
- Evidence
- Verified
- Records
- 1 in this archive
What they did
Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, paying rural Kenyan women a small sum for every seedling that survived — an approach that tied ecological restoration to household income and land rights.
Historical context
She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate, in veterinary anatomy at the University of Nairobi, and the first to chair a department there.
Obstacles
She was beaten and jailed for opposing state appropriation of public forest land.
The legacy
Tens of millions of trees were planted through the movement's networks, and she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 — the first African woman to do so.
The evidence
Nobel Peace Prize 2004 award record and lecture
Institutional recordWangari Maathai papers and Green Belt Movement records
Institutional record
Documentation strength
- 2
- Sources
- 0
- Primary
- 2
- Publishers
Calculated from the sources actually attached to this record — the closer a source sits to the original document, the more it counts. It is never asserted by hand.