October 8, 2004: Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize

On October 8, 2004, in Oslo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Kenyan Wangari Muta Maathai, a biologist and founder of the Green Belt Movement, "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace." It was the first time a woman from the African continent had been honored with this prize.

In its statement, the committee highlighted that in nearly thirty years, she had "mobilized poor women to plant 30 million trees." The prize went not to a head of state, but to an activist whom her own government treated as an adversary.

A doctorate in Nairobi, then a women's movement

Born on April 1, 1940, in Nyeri, in the central highlands of Kenya, Wangari Maathai studied in the United States before earning a doctorate in anatomy at the University of Nairobi in 1971. According to the Green Belt Movement, she was the first woman in East and Central Africa to obtain a doctorate.

In 1977, she launched the Green Belt Movement under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya. The idea was simple and radical: entrust rural women with the production and planting of saplings in exchange for payment. Behind the gesture lay a political analysis. If women were walking for hours to find firewood and water, it was because forests had been handed over to private interests.

Injured for trees, elected with 98% of the vote

The regime of Daniel arap Moi quickly understood this. In 1989, she opposed the construction of a 60-story complex in Nairobi's Uhuru Park intended to serve as the headquarters for the single party, KANU. Through legal action and an international campaign, the project was abandoned in February 1990, reports the Daily Nation.

A similar standoff occurred over the Karura Forest, which had been illegally allocated to developers. Also according to the Daily Nation, men armed with machetes attacked activists who had come to plant trees there in September 1998; Wangari Maathai was wounded in the head. Faced with the outcry, Moi banned all further allocation of public land on August 16, 1999. Imprisoned several times, she had been released on bail in 1991 with the support of Amnesty International.

What followed was a complete turnaround: in December 2002, she was elected Member of Parliament for Tetu with 98% of the vote, then served as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources from 2003 to 2007, according to the Green Belt Movement.

Wangari Maathai died in Nairobi on September 25, 2011, at the age of 71. The figures for her movement vary by source: the Nobel Foundation mentions "more than 20 million trees" in its biographical notice, and 30 million in the prize announcement.

Key takeaways

On October 8, 2004, Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for demonstrating that trees, women's rights, and democracy are part of the same struggle.