Wangari Maathai, nobel peace prize laureate and leader of Greenbelt Movement dies at 71

http://www.tree-nation.com/trees/458387

You too can plant a tree to keep her legacy alive and to make a better world for those here and those to come.

Dr. Maathai with Al Gore at the 2009 NAACP Image Awards.They were both honored at this event for their environmental work.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2011/0926/Wangari-Maathai-Her-activism-sav...
Wangari Maathai-Her Activism Saved Forests And Promoted Peace

Drive down toward Nairobi’s center from the city’s west, and before you hit the high-rises and the jammed grid of roads of the central business district, there is an oasis of green.

This is Uhuru Park – Uhuru means “freedom” in KiSwahili – and if it was not for a grandmother and accidental activist who died late Sunday, it would not exist today.

In the 1980s, Wangari Maathai led hundreds of mostly women to protest government plans to pave the independence-era park and erect a 62-story headquarters for the then-ruling Kenya African National Union party.

It was a typical kind of fight for Maathai, a campaign which saw her tear-gassed, beaten, arrested, and thrown into then President Danial arap Moi’s notorious underground cells. It was the kind of fight which also won her the first Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to an African woman, in 2004.

Her fortitude and passion inspired a generation of other Kenyan civic activists in the 1990s to believe that their voices, collaboratively, could bring multi-party democracy to a dictatorship, and force changes to policies sent down from on high by governors who until then were unaccustomed to being questioned. It was her unwavering determination to pick those fights, and to succeed, which also won her the first Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to an African woman, in 2004.

Kenya's best-known woman
Maathai – or Mama Wangari as she is known to Kenyans for whom she is as close to a national hero as anyone here – died late Sunday at Nairobi Hospital after a long battle with cancer.

She was perhaps Kenya’s best-known woman, its first woman to earn a university doctorate, and one of its first to win undergraduate and graduate scholarships to the US, where she studied in the mid-1960s at Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas and at the University of Pittsburgh.

By Monday evening, global tributes had swamped Twitter, where her name was one of the main trending topics. Her Facebook page saw more than 2,000 likes added in less than eight hours.

Radio phone-in shows talked of little else, and news of her death even knocked International Criminal Court hearings of Kenya’s post-election violence off news bulletins’ top spots.
more at the link

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/26/world/africa/wangari-maathai-tribute/

World leaders have paid tribute to Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai who passed away while having treatment for ovarian cancer on Monday.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu praised Maathai as a true "visionary African woman" and called her a "leading voice on the continent."

He said: "Professor Maathai introduced the idea of women planting trees in Kenya to reduce poverty and conserve the environment," in a statement released via his office.

"At last count, the Green Belt Movement she helped to found had assisted women to plant more than 40 million trees. She understood and acted on the inextricable links between poverty, rights and environmental sustainability. One can but marvel at her foresight and the scope of her success. She was a true African heroine," the statement continued.

"Our condolences go to Professor Maathai's family, to the people of Kenya, and to the countless women (and men) across Africa and the world to whom she was an inspiration."

His views were echoed by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan who said he was "deeply saddened" to learn of her death.

"She will be remembered as a committed champion of the environment, sustainable development, womens' rights, and democracy. Her contribution to all these causes will forever be celebrated and honored," he said.

"Wangari was a courageous leader. Her energy and life-long dedication to improve the lives and livelihoods of people will continue to inspire generations of young.

"Her award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, the first to be bestowed upon an African woman, rightly underscored the important nexus in her work between sustainable development, peace and human security."

Kenyan environmentalist and human rights activist, Wangari Maathai has died at the age of 71 Maathai was a trailblazer throughout her life. She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree and in 2002 was elected to Kenya's parliament with 98 percent of the vote. In 2004, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote sustainable development, democracy and peace. Wangari was the first African woman to win the Nobel prize but followed previous winners from the continent such as Nelson Mandela. Maathai was famed for her commitment to environmental causes. Here she confronts hired security guards in Kenya aiming to prevent her organization, the Green Belt Movement from planting trees She was also committed to the cause of reducing poverty and took part in the Live 8 campaign alongside rock superstars such as Bob Geldof and Bono. Wangari Maathai plants a tree in Nairobi 2006 with the visiting --then Senator for the state of Illinois -- Barack Obama. In 2007, Maathai received the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding, administered by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Previous recipients of the award include Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Receiving the Chairman's award alongside fellow environmental campaigner and Nobel Prize Winner, Al Gore at the NAACP Image Awards in 2009. Maathai is survived by her three children and grandaughter. HIDE CAPTION>>
Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete was among the first world leaders to celebrate the professor's life.

"Rest in peace Dr Wangari Maathai. A great woman, an inspiration for many women across Africa, a magnificent visionary and embodiment of courage," President Kikwete said on Twitter.

A spokesman for the Nelson Mandela Foundation said in a statement that Maathai has left a "lasting legacy in greater awareness and work in protecting our environment and the world."

The statement praised Maathai for a speech she delivered in 2005 at the Third Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, while she was Deputy Minister of Environment in Kenya.

She will be remembered as a committed champion of the environment, sustainable development, women's rights, and democracy

Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General
"We need people who love Africa so much that they want to protect her from destructive processes," she said in her address.

"There are simple actions we can take. Start by planting 10 trees we each need to absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale. Get involved in local initiatives and volunteer your time for services in your community," she continued.

A spokesman for the Kenyan government said the death of Maathai was "a huge loss to the country, Africa and the whole world" and had left a "gaping hole that will be difficult to fill."

He said Maathai had been receiving treatment for ovarian cancer at the Nairobi Hospital for the past year.

He added: "Prof. Wangari Maathai brought meaning to the words peace and environment. She made the world understand that water, trees, and protection of the environment helps us achieve real peace.

more at the link

http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/

Announcement from site of Greenbelt Movement.

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940-2011)

It is with great sadness that the family of Professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on 25th September, 2011, at the Nairobi Hospital, after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer. Her loved ones were with her at the time.

Professor Maathai’s departure is untimely and a very great loss to all who knew her—as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model, and heroine; or who admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier, and better place.

Prof. Wangari Muta Maathai started the Green Belt Movement in 1977, working with women to improve their livelihoods by increasing their access to resources like firewood for cooking and clean water. She became a great advocate for better management of natural resources and for sustainability, equity, and justice. A synopsis of her life and work can be read here.

Prof. Maathai leaves her three children—Waweru, Wanjira, and Muta—and a granddaughter, Ruth Wangari. They are truly very grateful for all the prayers and support they have received.

Further information on how Prof’s life will be celebrated, where to share memories and condolences, and how to join us to build her legacy for generations to come will be provided shortly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/sep/26/farewel...

Wangari Maathai, A Global Inspiration
Wangari Maathai was an environmental visionary who retained a firm affinity with rural communities in her native Kenya. Photograph: Antony Njuguna/Reuters
On Sunday night in London, I received a three word text message from a Kenyan friend: "Wangari Maathai amefariki" ("Wangari Maathai has died"). I slumped in pain. For me, her death brought not only the loss of a great environmental campaigner. It was also the loss of someone I had interviewed many times for the BBC World Service in Africa, someone I had come to think of as a friend.

I grew up in the Mau forest, the largest indigenous forest in east Africa. The Molo river ran from my home village of Moto, and its waters feed Lake Victoria. The "shamba" system, a colonial inheritance, allowed poor families like mine to cultivate food crops in forest areas, in return for which they had to plant and care for trees.

In theory, it was a win-win situation, allowing landless communities to grow food while conserving the forests. For my family, it meant ready access to food crops, firewood and clean water.

But Wangari Maathai was bitterly opposed to the shamba system. She argued that allowing food production within the forest was slowly damaging the centuries-old eco-system, no matter how many new trees were planted.

In a 2005 interview, she explained her opposition to me: "We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation to conserve the environment so that we can bequeath our children a sustainable world that benefits all.''

In 1977, when she founded her Green Belt Movement, the concepts of environmental sustainability and eco-system protection were barely recognised around the world, let alone in rural Kenya. But as time went on, her warnings proved accurate. The Mau forest began to shrink and many of the rivers that flowed from it - including the Molo - dried up.

But she persevered. And hers was a campaign always rooted in the real world, recognising the dilemma facing poor communities with their own basic needs. She had an amazing ability to connect complex environmental issues with their impact on ordinary lives, enabling her to persuade rather than force people to join her movement.

She worked with rural communities to increase their access to land, firewood and clean water outside the forest regions, and launched the "Enough is enough" campaign, which showed the Kenyan authorities how agriculture and tourism around Kenya's lakes and valleys would be damaged if the rivers from the Mau forest continued drying up.

When I interviewed her about job losses in the timber industry as the government finally began to introduce tighter controls on logging, she said: "I know there is pain when sawmills close and people lose jobs, but we have to make a choice. We need water and we need these forests''

She was a fearless opponent of corruption, a thorn in the side of the male-dominated Kenyan authorities – "that woman", they used to call her – and was never afraid to speak the truth to the most powerful world leaders when they dragged their feet on climate change.

Participants at the forthcoming Durban climate change conference will miss her contribution. Yet, with her passing, they have an even greater incentive to make progress and build a lasting legacy to her memory.

In my current job at the aid agency Cafod, I already see her true legacy: ordinary men and women in rural communities around the world, from Cambodia to Brazil, who take her as their inspiration when standing up against the logging companies, exposing collusion and corruption by the authorities, and protecting their forest heritage for future generations.

Personally, my lasting memory of Wangari Maathai will be her hearty laughter even as she articulated complex environmental issues, and her fierce determination to save the forest where I grew up. She was determined to save our lives in a way my family did not initially understand, but which she eventually persuaded us to demand.

She was my heroine, a global inspiration, and a true Kenyan warrior.

• Joseph Kabiru is Nairobi communicator at Cafod