Wangari Muta was born in Ihethe village in Nyeri district in Kenya on April 1, 1940. Her parents were farmers on Mount Kenya. After finishing school in Kenya, she went to college in the United States. She earned a BS in biology from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas and a MS in biology from University of Pittsburg.

She also did graduate study in Germany before returning to Nairobi, where she completed her PhD in veterinary medicine at the University of Nairobi in 1977. She was the first Kenyan woman to earn a doctorate.

Muta married Mwangi Mathai in 1969. Mathai divorced her several years later and left her to raise their three children alone, declaring that she was too strong-willed and difficult to control. During the divorce proceedings, Wangari was jailed for speaking out against the judge. The divorce decree stated that she must drop her husband’s name; instead, she changed it by adding an extra “a.”

Wangari Muta Maathai was the first female professor in Kenya, where she taught veterinary anatomy at the University of Nairobi.

In 1977, Maathai established the Green Belt Movement. Deforestation was causing environmental disaster in Kenya. Trees were being harvested at more than ten times the rate they were being replanted. On World Environment Day, she planted nine trees in her backyard. She started a grassroots movement of women who cultivated and planted trees throughout Kenya.

The women started tree nurseries and worked to get the trees planted on farm land, churches and in parks. They were paid for each tree that lived longer than three months. The Green Belt Movement has planted more than 30 million trees in Kenya, and has started the Pan African Green Belt Network to encourage tree planting in other African nations.

An outspoken political activist, Maathai has worked for environmental stewardship, democracy and women’s rights. She opposed Daniel erap Moi, president of Kenya, and unsuccessfully ran against him for President in 1997. She protested Moi’s repressive policies, involving herself in several protests. One was a hunger strike in 1992, calling for the release of political prisoners. As a result of her political activism, she was, at various times, beaten unconscious, her home was invaded, and she was jailed.

Wangari Maathai was co-chair of the Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign, which was a campaign to get the wealthy countries to cancel the debt of the poorest countries, many of which are in Africa.

In 2002, Maathai was elected to Kenya’s Parlaiment and was appointed Assistant Minister for the Environment by President Mwai Kibaki. In 2005, she was elected President of the African Union Economic, Social and Cultural Council.

Wangari Maathai has won many awards for her work, most notably the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. She is the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the prize. In 2006, she was awarded France’s Legion d’Honneur. She continues to serve with many organizations worldwide to advocate for the environment and for women.