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Farewell Wangari Maathai – Nobel winner dies in Nairobi
photo by e pants (Flickr CC)
Throat cancer has claimed the life of one of Africa’s and indeed the world’s luminaries of environmental and human rights activism.
Wangari Maathai, Kenya’s founder of the Green Belt Movement, has died from throat cancer at the age of 71. The Green Belt Movement combined ecological causes with social justice issues and planted 20-30 million trees on the African continent.
In 2004 Maathai became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her activism on behalf of the environment, women’s rights and political transparency. She also served as a government minister and Member of Parliament in her home country of Kenya.
From an AP report:
Maathai said during her 2004 acceptance speech that the inspiration for her life’s work came from her childhood experiences in rural Kenya, where she witnessed forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations, which destroyed biodiversity and the capacity of forests to conserve water.
For more on the life and death of Wangari Maathai, hero of the environment and social justice, see BBC News and Green Belt Movement homepage.
Tags: activist, Africa, Kenya, Wangari Maathai
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