Nobel Peace prize winner a Pitt, U. Nairobi alumnae

Pitt alumnae Wangari Muta Maathai has been awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, making her the… Pitt alumnae Wangari Muta Maathai has been awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, making her the first African woman to receive the award.

Maathai, 64, was picked from a record field of 194 candidates, including President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Pope John Paul II.

After earning her biological science master’s degree from Pitt in 1966, Maathai became the first Kenyan woman to hold a doctorate, which she received from the University of Nairobi.

She founded the Green Belt Movement, a grass-roots movement that has mobilized poor women in Africa to fight the deforestation of their homelands. To date, the Green Belt Movement has planted 30 million trees in 20 countries around the world.

The Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway, announced last week, “peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment. Maathai [stands] at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa.”

In 1998, Maathai received Time Magazine’s “Hero of the Planet” award for her environmental work.

Maathai began her effort in 1977, through the Kenyan ministry of forests, when she asked the director for 15 million tree seedlings to stop soil erosion and provide fuel for the poor. The director reportedly “laughed in her face, but told her she could have as many as she wanted.” A year later, he withdrew his offer because the demand had become so great.

The Nobel committee also commended Maathai for “[combining] science, social commitment and active politics.”

Maathai, now a member of the Kenyan parliament and assistant environment minister, outraged Kenya’s one-party state in 1989 when she led protests against the planned construction of a 62-story building in Uhuru (Freedom) Park in Nairobi.

Kenya’s President Daniel arap Moi called Maathai and the Green Belt Movement “subversive,” and she received criticism from her country’s parliament and the press. She was later physically assaulted and forced to flee the country. Foreign investors eventually withdrew their support for construction, and the project was cancelled.

Five years ago, there was international outrage and three days of rioting in Nairobi after Maathai, along with thousands of supporters, was beaten and tear-gassed while attempting to plant trees in Karura forest outside Nairobi.

“I feel extremely elated,” Maathai said after learning of the Nobel committee’s announcement, according to a Pitt press release. “This is something I would never have dreamt of.”

“It’s important for people to see that they are part of the environment and that they take responsibility for it.”

It is the second year in a row that a Pitt graduate has won a Nobel Prize; last year, Paul Lauterbur won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

“Everyone at Pitt is thrilled that Dr. Maathai has been selected for this very well-deserved recognition,” Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg said in a released statement.

The peace prize was first awarded in 1901. Set up in the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, the peace prize has also been awarded to Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Nixon and the 14th Dalai Lama.

Maathai will be given the award, and the $1.4 million in prize money, at a ceremony in Oslo on Dec. 10.