Who, after one’s studies, would not like to get a white-collar job with a high salary in the busiest city in the world? Education today has taken Man away from nature and placed him in concrete jungles. However, Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan ecologist, thinks that education should instill in people respect for the earth and nature.
Wangari Maathai was an environmental and political activist in Kenya. She studied biology in the United States and returned to Kenya to begin a career that combined environmental and social concerns. Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in Africa. This movement helped to plant over 30 million trees, providing jobs to the unemployed while also preventing soil erosion and securing firewood.
She was appointed Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources. In 2004, Maathai was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. She continued to fight for the rights of women, the politically oppressed and the natural environment in Kenya and other parts of the world. In 2011, Maathai died of complications from ovarian cancer.
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