<p>"It is with great sadness that the family of professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on September 25, 2011 at the Nairobi hospital after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer," said a statement issued via the Green Belt Movement she founded.<br /><br />Maathai became a key figure in Kenya since founding the movement in 1977, staunchly campaigning for environmental conservation and good governance.<br /><br />She won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her reforestation work in her native Kenya, the first African woman, the first Kenyan and the first environmentalist to receive this honour.<br />Her organisation has planted some 40 million trees across Africa.<br /><br />The first woman in east and central Africa to earn a doctorate, Maathai also headed the Kenya Red Cross in the 1970s.<br /><br />Aside from her conservation work, Maathai was elected an MP in 2002 and then named the environment assistant minister, a position she held between 2003 and 2005.<br /><br />For more than a decade from the 1980s, her movement also joined the struggle against the dictatorial regime of Kenya's former president Daniel Arap Moi, with Maathai repeatedly teargassed and beaten by police.<br /><br />During the time, she famously campaigned against the construction of a high-rise building at a park in central Nairobi, stopped the grabbing of a forest outside the city and successfully pressed for the release of 51 political prisoners.<br /><br />The award-winning Maathai in recent years founded green groups and launched several campaigns against climate change and environmental protection.<br /><br />Outside Kenya, Maathai was involved in efforts to save central Africa's Congo basin forest, the world's second largest tropical forest.<br /><br />Maathai, who was divorced, leaves behind three children and a granddaughter.<br />"Professor Maathai's departure is untimely and a very great loss to all who knew her as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model, and heroine, or who admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier, and better place," said the statement.</p>
<p>"It is with great sadness that the family of professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on September 25, 2011 at the Nairobi hospital after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer," said a statement issued via the Green Belt Movement she founded.<br /><br />Maathai became a key figure in Kenya since founding the movement in 1977, staunchly campaigning for environmental conservation and good governance.<br /><br />She won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her reforestation work in her native Kenya, the first African woman, the first Kenyan and the first environmentalist to receive this honour.<br />Her organisation has planted some 40 million trees across Africa.<br /><br />The first woman in east and central Africa to earn a doctorate, Maathai also headed the Kenya Red Cross in the 1970s.<br /><br />Aside from her conservation work, Maathai was elected an MP in 2002 and then named the environment assistant minister, a position she held between 2003 and 2005.<br /><br />For more than a decade from the 1980s, her movement also joined the struggle against the dictatorial regime of Kenya's former president Daniel Arap Moi, with Maathai repeatedly teargassed and beaten by police.<br /><br />During the time, she famously campaigned against the construction of a high-rise building at a park in central Nairobi, stopped the grabbing of a forest outside the city and successfully pressed for the release of 51 political prisoners.<br /><br />The award-winning Maathai in recent years founded green groups and launched several campaigns against climate change and environmental protection.<br /><br />Outside Kenya, Maathai was involved in efforts to save central Africa's Congo basin forest, the world's second largest tropical forest.<br /><br />Maathai, who was divorced, leaves behind three children and a granddaughter.<br />"Professor Maathai's departure is untimely and a very great loss to all who knew her as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model, and heroine, or who admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier, and better place," said the statement.</p>