Nobel Peace Prize
Professor Wangari Maathai, Deputy Environment and Natural Resources Minister in Kenya, won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace. Prof. Maathai is the first African woman to receive the prize, the twelfth woman to be so honored.
[Statistical aside… five continents, two sexes, an even distribution would find fifty women honored - ten from each continent over the last hundred years, but I digress…]
Prof. Maathai is also the first environmental advocate to earn the award. She is leader of the Green Belt Movement, an international environmental protection effort in Africa credited with planting 30 million trees in a tremendous reforestation effort. Wangari Maathai has worked hard for thirty years to reverse the effects of deforestation in central Africa.