Prof Wangari Maathai would've turned 81 today. 
Prof Maathai was the Kenyan woman to obtain a PhD when she graduated from the University of Nairobi in 1971. She is apparently the first woman in the East African region to obtain this qualification. She would later make history as the first African woman Nobel Laureate.
She founded the Green Belt Movement after more than 20 years of conservation activism in an attempt to curb deforestation. Of course there are links between clearing land of trees, privatization & corruption. Her work would lead to harrassment by the state including being jailed.
Her contributions remind me of Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation Mam' Fikile Ntshangase who was assassinated a couple of months ago. Ntshangase was critical of the expansion of a coal mine which would destroy one of SA's oldest nature reserve, Hluhluwe Park.
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