Wangari Tree Woman

In 2004 won the Kenyan environmental and political activist of the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10 was issued.


"We are responsible for the ecosystem of planet Earth. Through all kinds of living beings to protect our own survival we safe".
Founded in 1977, Wangari Maathai, born in 1940 in Nyeri and deputy minister for environment and wildlife in Kenya, the Green Belt Movement. With this move they mobilized poor African women to plant trees in various African countries.
She studied biology in the United States and promoted as the first East African woman at the University of Nairobi in veterinary medicine.


But she also had an eye for the enormous social and economic problems of women in Kenya. As chairman of the National Council for Women in Kenya, "she encouraged the women independent of their husbands and their cooperation was a massive tree planting scheme, taking not the authoritarian Moi regime had discouraged. There were now in 30 different African countries, 30 million trees planted. It was not only good for the environment, but also improved the social position and identity of women. More and more people in Africa will join the project so that a new ecological consciousness has arisen on this continent. The deep commitment of the African population in nature was revived. The Green Belt Movement is active in dozens of African countries, including Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Lesotho, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.


Wangari's goals are to fulfill and protect the Universal Human Rights, the emancipation of women, violence and environmental sustainability. For her tenacity, she was repeatedly arrested the nineties. She received international attention for her opposition to a construction project supported by the president, making large areas of forest were felled.
In December 2002 she was elected to Member of Parliament in her country, and finally a member of the cabinet of President Mwai Kibaki as the new Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife in Kenya.


In Germany, she received the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung the Petra-Kelly-Preis 2004 (€ 10,000) in Denmark, the Sophie Prize.


Beginning of the year 2004 she was caught by police as heavy-handed, head injuries that resulted. They tried to blockade a forest protection, which would be cut.


To celebrate the Nobel Prize, Wangari planted a new tree immediately. She put her jewels, her sleeves rolled up, dug himself a hole and put the new tree in it.


A quote from her speech at the reception of the Petra-Kelly-Preis:


"New uiitdagingen come to mind: global terrorism, new diseases such as HIV / AIDS
mainly dominate in my part of the world, old diseases like malaria are largely returned, genetic engineering, climate change, deforestation and general environmental degradation and human-induced poverty. These things last forever, not so much by ignorance or lack of scientific information. They last forever and humiliate our people because they - as in the past - are driven by selfishness, greed and indifference. And therefore, the more progress we made during the year, the more things seemed unchanged. Therefore we have learned to do what is possible and we will continue our struggle until the next generation. We will continue to give them the hope that the world is a better place for everyone. "