No one was more surprised on Friday to hear from the Norwegian Nobel Committee than Wangari Maathai, Kenya's assistant minister for the environment. She was holding a meeting with her constituents near Mt. Kenya when she got the news that she had just become the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her life-long commitment to the environment, democracy and human rights. Maathai celebrated by planting a tree.
In recognizing Maathai, the Nobel Committee is recognizing that Africa has been ignored for too long, and that the time had come to applaud the invaluable contribution of African women to their societies. Maathai, 64, has been Kenya's leading environmentalist for almost 30 years. She started the Green Belt Movement--a landmark environmental and human rights organization in Africa that has helped plant an estimated 30 million trees in a country now facing desertification, with only 2 percent forest cover remaining. While researching women's issues in the 1970s, Maathai found important links to the environment: malnutrition and lack of water, firewood and cash crops.
"I don't see a distinction between environmentalism and feminism," she said in an interview at the Fairview Hotel in Nairobi shortly after accepting her award. "It's difficult for me to differentiate whether I'm campaigning as a woman or just as a human being trying to ensure everyone gets their rights." Maathai's plant-a-tree movement was the spark that ignited a feminist movement throughout Africa, giving women a sense of accomplishment and self worth that wasn't previously part of the culture.
