Kenyan queen: Wangari Maathai after winning the Nobel peace Prize in 2004
The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize died in a Nairobi hospital yesterday while undergoing treatment for cancer. She was aged 71 .
Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which enabled poor women to plant 20-30 million trees in Africa.
She is the first African to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Ms Maathai won the prize in 2004 for promoting conservation, women's rights and transparent government - the first African woman to get the award.
She was elected as an MP in 2002 and served as a minister in the Kenyan government for a time.
Mrs Maathai was also the first woman in East Africa to complete a doctorate, in 1971 at the University of Nairobi, where she later became an associate professor in the veterinary anatomy department. She became a professor of veterinary anatomy, rose to international fame for campaigns against government-backed forest clearances in Kenya in the late 1980s-90s.
Under the former government of President Daniel Arap Moi, she was arrested several times, and vilified.
In 2008, Ms Maathai was tear-gassed during a protest against the Kenyan president's plan to increase the number of ministers in the cabinet.
In her speech accepting the Nobel prize, Ms Maathai said she hoped her own success would spur other women on to a more active role in the community. She also said that she had been inspired by her childhood experiences in rural Kenya, where she saw forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations, which destroyed biodiversity and the ability of forests to conserve water.
"I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership," she said.
The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, said she was saddened by the news.
"Africa, particularly African women, have lost a champion, a leader, an activist. We're going to miss her. We're going to miss the work she's been doing all these years on the environment, working for women's rights and women's participation," she said.
The mother of three, who also has degrees from Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas and the University of Pittsburgh, had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year, said former colleague Edward Wageni.
Mr Wageni is deputy executive director at the Green Belt Movement, which Mrs Maathai founded in 1977.
The organisation's website said her death was a great loss to the many who 'admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier and better place.'
It said that her funeral arrangements would be announced soon.
Mrs Maathai - who was also Kenya's deputy minister for environment and natural resources - began developing the idea of widespread tree-planting while chairwoman of the National Council of Women in Kenya in the 1980s.
The Green Belt Movement's tree-planting campaign did not initially address issues of peace and democracy, but Mrs Maathai said it had become clear over time that responsible environment governance was not possible without democracy.
'The tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya. Citizens were mobilised to challenge widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement,' she said.
Under the former government of President Daniel Arap Moi, she was arrested several times, and vilified.
In 2008, Ms Maathai was tear-gassed during a protest against the Kenyan president's plan to increase the number of ministers in the cabinet.
Grassroots: Mrs Maathai Greenbelt Movement
"I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership," she said.
The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, said she was saddened by the news.
"Africa, particularly African women, have lost a champion, a leader, an activist. We're going to miss her. We're going to miss the work she's been doing all these years on the environment, working for women's rights and women's participation," she said.
The mother of three, who also has degrees from Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas and the University of Pittsburgh, had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year, said former colleague Edward Wageni.
Mr Wageni is deputy executive director at the Green Belt Movement, which Mrs Maathai founded in 1977.
The organisation's website said her death was a great loss to the many who 'admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier and better place.'
It said that her funeral arrangements would be announced soon.
Mrs Maathai - who was also Kenya's deputy minister for environment and natural resources - began developing the idea of widespread tree-planting while chairwoman of the National Council of Women in Kenya in the 1980s.
The Green Belt Movement's tree-planting campaign did not initially address issues of peace and democracy, but Mrs Maathai said it had become clear over time that responsible environment governance was not possible without democracy.
'The tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya. Citizens were mobilised to challenge widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement,' she said.
The Nobel committee said she had stood up to what was an oppressive regime in Kenya and that her 'unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression.'
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