Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai who became the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize has died of cancer at the age of 71, her family announced Monday. Tributes flowed in for Maathai, who died on Sunday at a Nairobi hospital while undergoing treatment, lauding her outstanding struggle against environmental degradation.
"It is with great sadness that the family of professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on 25th September 2011 at the Nairobi hospital after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer," a statement said. Achim Steiner, director of the UN environment programme, described her as a "force of nature." "While others deployed their power and life force to damage, degrade and extract short term profit from the environment, she used hers to stand in their way," Steiner said in a statement.
Maathai became a key figure in Kenya since founding the Green Belt Movement in 1977, staunchly campaigning for environmental conservation and good governance. She won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her reforestation work in Kenya, the first African woman, the first Kenyan and the first environmentalist to receive this honour. Her organisation has planted some 40 million trees across Africa. The first woman in east and central Africa to earn a doctorate, Maathai also headed the Kenya Red Cross in the 1970s.
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