Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, teaching women to plant trees as a way to keep their water clean and provide them with wood. The Nobel Committee noted that her work stood out particularly against the repressive government of former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi, who was no Maathai fan. He called her "mad" and described her as a threat to Kenyan national security, according to The Associated Press. Green Belt Movement Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, died on Sunday after a long struggle with cancer. She was 71 years old. In 1977, she spearheaded the struggle against state-backed deforestation in Kenya and founded the Green Belt Movement, which has planted some 45 million trees in the country. She has also been an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and democratic development. She won the Right Livelihood Award in 1984. Twenty years later, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. A frequent guest on Democracy Now!, Wangari Maathai last appeared on the show in 2009.
Wangari Maathai: "I would like to say this: if the more than 4,000 scientists who have been working on this issue are wrong, this is one issue that we cannot experiment with. We cannot wait until the seas rise, the rivers dry up, and our people are dying and migrating and running away. We cannot wait to see more fires, such as we are seeing in California, erratic fires. We cannot wait to see the kind of floods that we see in Bangladesh, that we see in West Africa. We are already seeing islands that are literally drowning. So, let us not experiment with our lives and that of our children."
Kenyan environmentalist and zoology professor Wangari Maathai bcame the first woman from Africa to win the Nobel Peace Prize Friday. We hear Wangari Maathai speaking earlier about the violence she faces in Kenya and we speak with her colleague Terry Tempest Williams.
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