Wangari Maathai, Nobel laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, passed away late Sunday night while undergoing cancer treatment in Nairobi. But she left the world having fully lived her 71 years, to the benefit of the rest of us.
Like many prominent women her age, Maathai had to break through many barriers to get where she ended up. After studying in the US, she returned to her native Kenya, where in 1971 she became the first East African women to earn a Ph.D. She then went on to become Chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an Associate Professor, the first woman to hold either of those positions at the University of Nairobi.
However, it was her activism that brought the most attention to Maathai. Throughout the 1970s she became increasingly involved with local civic organizations. Although the causes she championed were diverse, she traced the root problem to environmental degradation. While serving the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976, she proposed planting trees as a method of reducing the degradation she saw around her. A simple idea, but with it a movement was born.
Overtime, her grassroots movement planted more than 20 million trees in Kenya and educated other Africans on how to do the same. By 2004, several other African nations implemented similar initiatives and Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the first African woman to receive that honor.
Of course such prominence comes with a cost. Her marriage ended when her husband found her to be too strong willed, she faced discrimination and government oppression in her political activism. But the power of Maathai is that she never shrank from the responsibility that came with her public position. Throughout her life she advocated for human rights, democracy, and sustainable development, and that strength and character is why she will be sorely missed by many.
