Wangari Maathai

It was 5 June 1977, in Nairobi, Kenya.

That day, trees were planted. They were the first of a brand-new movement. The planting honoured seven peoples of Kenya.

Behind that gesture was a woman: Wangari Maathai.

She was born on 1 April 1940, in Nyeri, a rural area of Kenya.

As a young woman, she went to study in the United States. In 1964, she earned a degree in biology at Mount St. Scholastica College, in Kansas. In 1966, a master's at the University of Pittsburgh.

In 1969, she returned to Kenya. She pursued doctoral studies in Germany and in Nairobi.

In 1971, the University of Nairobi awarded her a doctorate. No woman in East or Central Africa had earned one before her.

She taught veterinary anatomy in Nairobi. She became the first woman in the region to chair that department.

In 1976, at the National Council of Women of Kenya, she put forward a simple idea: planting trees, with the people.

The following year, the Green Belt Movement was born.

In 1979, hundreds of women planted trees on a farm in the countryside. In the 1980s, more than six hundred tree nurseries sprang up. Between 2,500 and 3,000 women lent a hand.

The movement gave seedlings to women. It taught them how to plant and grow trees. It also helped them earn an income.

One day, she told her staff:

In 1986, a Pan-African Green Belt Network was born.

The movement also defended Nairobi's green spaces.

In 1989, her movement opposed a tower planned for Uhuru Park, in Nairobi. The movement won. In 1991, it helped save Jeevanjee Gardens, which were to become a multi-storey car park.

She was jailed twice. In 1992, during a peaceful protest, police beat her severely.

She kept going. From 1998 to 2003, she defended Karura Forest, parts of which were being handed out illegally.

The battle was won in 2003. The country's new leaders came to plant trees in the forest themselves.

In December 2002, she was elected to Parliament with 98 percent of the vote. In 2003, she became an assistant minister for the environment.

In 2004, she received the Nobel Peace Prize. She was the first Black African woman to win a Nobel Prize.

The committee praised the way she tied everything together: sustainable development, democracy, human rights, and women's rights in particular.

Wangari Maathai died in Nairobi on 25 September 2011, at seventy-one, of cancer.

She tied together the land, democracy and women's rights. That way of thinking, rooted in Kenya, echoes Ubuntu, without being the same thing.

Since 1977, the movement has planted more than 51 million trees. More than 30,000 women have been trained through it.

One June day, in Nairobi, there were only a few young seedlings.

Since then, millions more have followed.