One would think, everything has been said. When Professor Wangari Muta Maathai passed away on September 25th in Nairobi, the world was united in sorrow, respect and admiration. Thousands of sympathy messages flooded Nairobi. Wangari Maathai was celebrated as environmentalist and highly respected as a feminist, a fighter for human rights and as a green politician.

Born in a small Kenyan village on April 1st 1940, Wangari was among one of the first girls of her generation that could go to school, thanks to her mother’s far-sightedness. While Kenya was fighting for independence, Wangari visited convent schools and in 1960 eventually received a scholarship which enabled her to go to a university in the United States. The experience of the civil rights movements in the U.S. deeply shaped her own understanding for justice and liberal freedom.

Back in Kenya, Wangari soon realized that her newly independent country couldn’t keep pace with her personal development: When she lost a previously promised position at the University of Nairobi to a man with a preferred ethnic background, this experience of exclusion in an increasingly ethnical polarized society deeply hurt her. At the same time she began to realize the extent to which the boundaries created by the traditional images of African women would affect her own energy and ambition. Soon she decided to channel her social and political engagement in woman movements, at first in Kenya, where she became chairwoman of the National Council of Women in 1981; and later on world-wide as co-founder of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization. She soon became a role model for many.

Wangaris unshakable optimism and her belief in “a thin, silver lining” in even the darkest clouds helped her to turn setbacks into opportunities. Instead of giving up, she began her PhD studies at the University of Gießen and in 1971 became the first East African Woman to ever obtain a doctorate. Six years later she was the first woman in the region to head a university department. Another year later she became the first Kenyan assistance professor. The future was looking bright for an academic career – but everything turned out quite differently.

Wangari Maathai became more and more aware of the hardship of the women surrounding her and decided to immediately fight against this. She was well aware of the fact that the fight over the dwindling resources in the country repeatedly lead to conflicts and how this was again abused by political elites for their own interest. Wangari’s answer to that was to promote initiatives to plant trees, to stop the destruction of the forests and to (re-)create rural livelihoods. She will always be associated with the millions of trees she planted with thousands of women all over Kenya. The first “green belt” comprised seven trees. Until today the Green Belt Movement, which Wangari founded in 1977, has planted more than 45 million trees and thus secured the income source of tens of thousands of people. As the trees were growing, so did the self-confidence of the many women and communities who engaged in the movement all over Kenya. The initial ideas of environment protection and environmental education were extended by elements of civil and political engagement – a project which also stood at the beginning of an almost two decades lasting partnership with the Heinrich Boell Foundation.

At that time the foundation was already supporting Wangari Maathai’s initiative for the process of reconciliation in the Rift Valley, which had been the arena of violent ethnic conflicts after the parliamentary elections in 1992. Wangari was already well known by the regime of the ruler Daniel arap Moi. Former President Moi accused Wangari of having “insects in her head”. That was his explanation for her resistance and her unbreakable will, when she prevented a prestigious project of the regime, a skyscraper in the only public park of Nairobi, from being built. A small seemingly inconsiderable and insignificant woman dared to challenge the regime. And she did it over and over again. In 1992 Wangari was heading the peaceful protest of mothers of political prisoners which lasted eleven months. Due to her political engagement during this violent and repressive era, she was repeatedly arrested and violently abused. Yet her courage and her exemplary courses of action decisively contributed to the creation of a self-confident and critical Kenyan civil society, without which democratic change would not have become possible.

Wangari Maathai wasn’t only an activist. She has also always been a convinced democrat. She knew that political legitimacy does not solely arise out of principled acting, but also from a wide support of the population through free and fair elections. She knew about the rigidity of the political business and aptly summed it up for herself: to survive,  a woman in Kenyan politics has to have the skin of an elephant. She founded the “Mazingira (environment) Party” and was overwhelmingly elected as first green Kenyan politician into parliament in 2002. The election victory of the “Rainbow Coalition” under the guidance of Mwai Kibaki, an association of opposition parties including the “Mazingira Party”, put an end to the autocratic regime of Daniel arap Moi which had lasted for decades. Wangari Maathai became deputy environment minister. When the Rainbow Coalition broke up and president Kibaki neglected his promise of a constitutional reform, Wangari left the government.

In 2007 Wangari ran again for parliament but this time not successfully. At the end, her global and national roles were not compatible with the needs of Kenyan local politics, which she was measured on by her constituency. When the contested election results of 2007/08 lead to a violent crisis, which took more than 1.000 lives, Wangari and other forces of civil society strove towards a grand coalition between the opponents.

The list of honors of Wangari Maathai is long and impressive. Often the international community served as a shield against various political threats and attempts of intimidations made against her in Kenya. In 1984 she received the Alternative Nobel Prize. In April 2004 Wangari was awarded the “Petra-Kelly-Prize” from the Heinrich Boell Foundation for her “wholehearted commitment to human rights, to women rights and emancipation, to non-violence, environmental sustainability and to the democratization of Kenya”. In the autumn of the same year, she then received her biggest honor: as first African woman she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Tirelessly she used the prize to share with the world community her message for a peaceful cooperation of all people regardless of their ethnic group, religion and sex and for a peaceful co-existence of men and nature. Anyone that was privileged to meet her and work with her, could feel her power, authenticity and passion with which she won over so many people, especially the youth.

In 2007 Wangari in cooperation with the Heinrich Boell Foundation launched the appeal “Africa speaks up on Climate Change”. It is an appeal to the world community, but also to all African statesmen and women, to take responsibility for fending off the catastrophic outcomes of climate change, which will affect Africa the most.

During the last couple of years, Wangari began to fulfill one of her biggest dreams: she founded an institute for peace and environmental studies at the University of Nairobi which will carry her name. With the institute, her life has come full circle. It is a place where research and academic studies should serve the needs of and be accessible to the rural communities. That her legacy will be put into practice, now lies in the hands of her friends.

Never will there be a time when everything has been said about Wangari Maathai. Her tireless engagement for democracy and human rights, her brave and tireless commitment to the protection of the forest and the environment in Kenya, in Africa and in the whole world also demanded many personal sacrifices. In one of her last interviews Wangari mourns not having spent enough time with her family. Wangari leaves behind her daughter Wanjira and her two sons Waweru and Muta. To them we express our deepest sympathy.

Wangari’s death leaves everybody whose life she touched and whose heart she immediately conquered with her charming heartiness in sorrow. But even more, it leaves everybody with the wish to take her brave way of life whenever possible as a guide and to consequently promote her political and environmental concerns.

The Heinrich Boell Foundation looses with Wangari Maathai a good friend and partner.

In deep admiration and great thankfulness we bow to this remarkable woman.

In the name of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Barbara Unmüßig, President

(This eulogy has been translated from German to English).

• Eulogy in German by Barbara Unmüßig, President: http://www.boell.de/oekologie/gesellschaft/oekologie-gesellschaft-nachruf-wangari-maathai-13052.html
• Press Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boellstiftung/sets/72157627766329229/