Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai was born in 1940 in kenya. She is a very smart and educated person holding several degrees including a PhD. She was the department chair of a major african university with a specialization in veterinary medicine. In 2004 she became the first african woman to win a nobel prize for her work at imporving the environment.

What i found to be most interesting about her was her modesty. She began the greenbelt movement but had no intention of it becoming so large. Initially she just wanted to plant trees locally but as it caught on over 30 million trees had been planted. As of today over 1 Billion trees have been planted and cared for in a spectaculr global effort.