-
Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for combining environmentalism and social activism. (Tony Karumba, AFP)
-
Mathaai rose to international fame for campaigns against government-backed forest clearances in Kenya in the late 1980s and 1990s. (Simon Maina, AFP)
-
She founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, the largest tree planting project in Africa. (Simon Maina, AFP)
-
Mathaai was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. (Eric Fegerberg, AFP)
-
The Nobel Peace Prize winner died in a Nairobi hospital late Sunday. (Bjoern Sigurdsoen, AFP)
-
Over thirty years she mobilised poor women to plant 30 million trees. (Bjoern Sigurdsoen, AFP)
-
The Nobel Peace Prize winner died after a long struggle with cancer. She was 71. (Bogonko Bosire, AFP)
-
The Green Belt Movement stated on their website: "Her departure is untimely and a very great loss to all of us who knew her - as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model, and heroine - or those who admired her determination to make the world a peaceful, healthy, and better place for all of us." (Daniel Sannum Lauten, AFP)
-
Maathai founded her now famous Green Belt Movement in 1977 while she was director of the Kenyan red cross. (Gianluigi Guercia, AFP)
-
Maathai was the first woman to earn a doctorate in East Africa in 1971 from the University of Nairobi, where she later was an associate professor in the department of veterinary anatomy. (Tor Richardsen, AFP)
-
Maathai is survived by her three children. (Olivier Morin, AFP)