Wangari Maathai

Wangari Muta Maathai was born on April 1, 1940, in Ihithe, a village in the central highlands of Kenya. Her family were Kikuyu farmers, and she grew up in a landscape of forests and streams, learning from her mother that certain fig trees were sacred and must never be cut. She was one of the first women in East Africa to earn a bachelor's degree, studying at Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas, then a master's at the University of Pittsburgh, then a PhD in veterinary anatomy at the University of Nairobi, the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate. She became a professor and department chair, but her mind kept returning to the degradation she saw when she went home: the forests cleared, the streams dry, the women walking miles for firewood and water.