Remembering Wangari Maathai at DFID
In June 2009, Professor Wangari Maathai spoke to a packed house here at DFID about the environment and climate change.
Listen to or download some of the highlights from her talk:
A great life
Wangari Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was internationally recognised for her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation. She was known for having founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental NGO with the objectives of planting trees, environmental conservation, and women’s rights.
In 2004 she became the first African woman, and the first environmentalist, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”
She was also elected as a member of Parliament in Kenya and served as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005.
In 2009, shortly before her talk at DFID, she published her third book, The Challenge for Africa, in which she put forth realistic but ambitious strategies for Africans to end a decades-long cycle of corruption, poverty, ignorance, environmental degradation and other deep-rooted problems.
Paying tribute to her achievements, Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said:
"I was greatly saddened by the death of Professor Wangari Maathai. She was an inspirational woman who did so much to promote change in Africa."