Professor Maathai, a globally recognized champion for human rights and women’s empowerment, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2004 for planting over 40 million trees in communities across east Africa.

She was a pioneer in articulating the links between human rights, poverty, environmental protection and security.

What began as a few women planting trees became a network of 600 community groups that cared for 6,000 tree nurseries, which were often supervised by disabled and mentally ill people in the villages. By 2004, more than 30m trees had been planted, and the movement had branches in 30 countries.

‘I will be a hummingbird’  Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai was born to a Kikuyu family of farmers in Ihithe, a small village in the central highlands of Kenya, which was then a British colony. Though it was far from common in the 1940s for girls like her to receive an education, Wangari was sent to primary school and from then on accomplishments seemed to drop into her lap.

Her early work as a vet took her to some of Kenya’s poorest areas, where she saw firsthand the degradation of the environment and the stress it put on the lives of women who produced most of the food and led her in 1977 to set up the Green Belt movement

Initially, the Green Belt movement’s tree-planting activities did not address issues of democracy and peace, but it soon became clear to her that responsible governance of the environment was impossible without democratic space. The tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya and a way of challenging widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement.

In 2004 Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel peace prize and it gave her an international profile and a strong platform to travel the world, pressing home the message that ecology and democracy were indivisible.

Wangari Maathai, environmental activist and politician, born 1 April 1940; died 25 September 2011