She became the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, and the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. What stands out most, however, is the impact of her community-based tree-planting initiative.
Prof Maathai gained global attention in 1998, when former Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi backed the development of a luxury housing project that would cut down hundreds of acres of Nairobi’s Karura Forest. She was arrested and imprisoned numerous times during Moi’s regime because of her protests against deforestation.
