10.10.04

Guardian Unlimited

**I think this is so cool!

Kenyan tree planter wins peace prize

Adam Jay and agencies
Friday October 8, 2004

Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist, today became the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize.

Ms Maathai, 64, Kenya's deputy environment minister, heads the Green Belt movement, a group that has planted 30m trees in Africa to help protect the environment. She says decades of excess have left just 1.7% of her native country with tree cover.

Such was Ms Maathai's excitement at winning the 10m Swedish crown (£800,000) prize that she failed to keep the news under wraps until the official declaration. Fifteen minutes before the announcement was made in Oslo, at 10am UK time, she alerted journalists to her victory.

"I've just heard from the ambassador of Norway three minutes ago that I have won," she said. "I am very excited. I really don't know what to say."

Ole Danbolt Mjoes, the leader of the five-member Norwegian Nobel committee, had previously declined to give any hints. Despite the record field of 194 candidates, he told Norwegian radio shortly before the announcement: "I can't say it has been more difficult this year than before."

"I am absolutely overwhelmed and very emotionally charged, really. I did not expect this," Ms Maathai told Norwegian state television once her award had been made official.

Fighting back tears, she said: "The environment is very important in the aspects of peace because when we destroy our resources and our resources become scarce, we fight over that. I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, but we also improve governance."

Ms Maathai was the first woman from east and central Africa to obtain a doctorate, after earning a degree in biological sciences from Mount St Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas, in 1964. As well as fighting for environmental conservation, she and Green Belt have been internationally recognised for the struggle for democracy and human rights.

A Kenyan government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said: "As a country we're greatly honoured. This is a great moment in Kenyan history. To us this shows that what Wangari Maathai has been doing here has been recognised. We're very proud of her and she deserves all the credit."

Of the 194 nominees, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency and its head Mohamed El Baradei had been many pundits' favourite to scoop the prize. Ms Maathai was not even considered to have been in the running until Norway's NRK public television, which has often predicted the winner, said the prize might go to an environmentalist.

Centrebet, an Australian website that offered odds on the prize, favoured the IAEA and Mr El Baradei at 4/1, following its recent work to stem nuclear proliferation in North Korea, Iran and Iraq. US senator Richard Lugar and former senator Sam Nunn were quoted at 6/1, for their work dismantling ageing Soviet nuclear warheads.

A South African Aids pressure group and its leader, Zackie Achmat, were quoted at 7/1, as were Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalyov and Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. No odds appeared to have been offered for Ms Maathai.

Although the first African woman to win the prize since it was first awarded in 1901, Ms Maathai is the second female winner in a row, after Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi took the award last year.

Six Africans had previously won the prize, including UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who shared it with the UN in 2001, and Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, who shared it in 1993.

Ms Maathai's win comes after Geir Lundestad, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, hinted in 2001 that the award might shift focus in its second century to honour new types of activists such as environmentalists, rock stars, and perhaps even journalists.

Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?