The Hindu : International : 'She thinks globally and acts locally'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 09, 2004

International

International

'She thinks globally and acts locally'

OSLO, OCT. 8 Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who started an environmental movement that has planted 30 million trees in Africa and who has campaigned for women's rights and greater democracy in her home country, today won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

She is the first African woman to win the peace prize since it was first awarded in 1901. Last year, the prize was awarded to another woman, Shirin Ebadi, in recognition of her work promoting the rights of women and children as a lawyer in Iran.

Announcing the award here, the Nobel committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, said Ms. Maathai ``represents an example and a source of inspiration for everyone in Africa fighting for sustainable development, democracy and peace.''

Ms. Maathai, 64, born in Nyeri, Kenya, founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, to organise poor women in rural Kenya to plant millions of trees to combat deforestation and to replenish the source of fuel for cooking fires in villages. She is divorced with three children.

The African activist received degrees in science from Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Nairobi, where she was awarded a doctorate before directing the veterinary medicine faculty there, according to a biography.

``Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa,'' Mr. Mjoes said.

``She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development and embraces democracy, human rights and women's rights in particular,'' he said, adding, ``She thinks globally and acts locally.''

An activist at home — beaten and jailed during the rule of President Daniel Arap Moi for challenging state policies that threatened Kenyas parks, wildlife and forests — she also travelled broadly to support women's causes.

``Maathai stood up courageously against the former oppressive regime in Kenya,'' the Nobel committee said. ``Her unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression.''

In 1996, when an international agricultural research organisation identified poor farmers in the developing world as a significant threat to forest lands, Ms. Maathai spoke out, saying, ``It is very common for people making such conclusions to blame poor people. Poor people are the victims, not the cause."

- New York Times News Service

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