Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) was a Kenyan activist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner. She the founded the Green Belt Movement, which has trained women throughout Africa to combat deforestation, in part through the planting of more than 40 million trees, and authored The Challenge for Africa, Unbowed: A Memoir, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience, and Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World, from which this piece is excerpted.