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10/09/2004:

"Nobel peace prize for woman of 30m trees"

by John Vidal
Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan who created a women's movement which has planted more than 30m trees in 20 countries, became the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize yesterday.

The award to recognises an effort which began in 1977 when she walked into the ministry of forests in Nairobi and asked for 15m tree seedlings to stop soil erosion, provide fuel and improve the lot of the poorest communities.

The director laughed in her face, but told her she could have as many as she wanted.

Less than a year later he had to withdraw his offer because the demand was so great.

...Prof Maathai, 64, says she turned to trees to give Kenyan women self-confidence.

In 1989 she told the Guardian: "[We] are overwhelmed by experts who sap confidence. People [have been made to] believe they are ignorant, inexperienced, incapable and backward. The idea of setting up the Green Belt Movement is to create local expertise to create confidence."

..."The growth of an impersonal concrete jungle directly leads to the psychosis, neuroses, maniacal and freakish behaviour evident in the major cities of the so-called developed world," she said.

Full Article: Guardian UK