Nobel peace prize for woman of 30m trees
John Vidal www.theguardian.com
Wangari Maathai is the first female African to win the award.
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the Guardian
Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan who created a women's movement which has planted more than 30m trees in 20 countries, became the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize yesterday.

The award to recognises an effort which began in 1977 when she walked into the ministry of forests in Nairobi and asked for 15m tree seedlings to stop soil erosion, provide fuel and improve the lot of the poorest communities.

The director laughed in her face, but told her she could have as many as she wanted.

Less than a year later he had to withdraw his offer because the demand was so great.

Twenty-seven years ago Professor Maathai, now an MP, Kenya's assistant environment minister, and the recipient of numerous international awards and honours, was head of veterinary anatomy at Nairobi University and had just set up the Green Belt Movement.

"It's important for people to see that they are part of the environment and that they take responsibility for it," she said.

"I feel extremely elated. This is something I would never have dreamt of."

Her award, for "promoting ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa", was welcomed as recognition of African women's efforts to improve their lives and the importance of grassroots environmental initiatives.

"Wangari Maathai has made an incredible contribution to improving the environment and society, not only in Africa but worldwide" said Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth in London.

Klaus Töpfer, director of the UN environment programme, said: "She is a leader whose example should inspire us all, especially the women and children of Africa, who shoulder so much of the continent's burden of poverty, conflict and environmental degradation".

Prof Maathai, 64, says she turned to trees to give Kenyan women self-confidence.

In 1989 she told the Guardian: "[We] are overwhelmed by experts who sap confidence. People [have been made to] believe they are ignorant, inexperienced, incapable and backward. The idea of setting up the Green Belt Movement is to create local expertise to create confidence."

She encouraged the setting up of more than 5,000 tree nurseries, which were run by women and disabled people.

"The biggest impact is the sense of hope and power in the lives of the ordinary women who make up 90% of the Green Belt members.

"They can hardly read or write. The women respond so quickly to a common cause that soon they see this as a way to help the community at large, and the nation. They want to make a contribution."

Initially tolerated by President Moi, Prof Maathai outraged his one-party state by leading protests against the erection of a 62-storey building in the middle of Uhuru (Freedom) park, Nairobi's most important public space.

The building, commissioned by the government party, Kanu, was to be funded by the late Robert Maxwell.

"The growth of an impersonal concrete jungle directly leads to the psychosis, neuroses, maniacal and freakish behaviour evident in the major cities of the so-called developed world," she said.

Mr Moi called her and the Green Belt Movement "subversive" and she was vilified in parliament and in the press, beaten up and forced to flee the country. But foreign investors withdrew their support and the building project was cancelled.

When she returned to Kenya she took up the cause of political prisoners, and directly attacked Mr Moi for commandeering forests and throwing out tribal groups.

In 1999 there was three days of rioting in Nairobi, and international outrage, after she and thousands of supporters were beaten and teargassed while trying to plant trees in Karura forest, near the city.

Fifty of this year's record 194 nominations for the peace prize were for organisations, the rest for individuals. The nominations are not revealed.