Do we like Wangari Maathai?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decades of risky, unselfish work for trees, women and democracy, held back by one loud public-health slip in 2004.
Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya in 1977, and over about three decades it planted tens of millions of trees. It also trained thousands of women in things like agroforestry and beekeeping. In 2004 she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The stories behind the trees are the real measure of her. In 1989 she led a campaign against a planned 60-storey tower in Nairobi's Uhuru Park, and the government dropped it in February 1990. In 1992 she joined a hunger strike by mothers of political prisoners; police dispersed it violently and she was seriously injured, after which President Moi called her “a mad woman”.
Then came Karura Forest. In 1998 she learned that much of the forest had been handed to private developers, so she and her supporters planted trees there. They were attacked, with Kanu youths armed with machetes reported to have uprooted the trees, and a January 1999 protest was met by about 200 guards. After international pressure, Moi banned the excision of the forest in August 1999.
Now the harm check, because she gets an asterisk. In August 2004 she was reported as saying HIV was a tool designed by evil-minded scientists. The day after her Nobel win she said it was created by a scientist for biological warfare. The US State Department said it did not agree. That is a conspiracy claim about a disease that kills people, and it matters.
The mitigating bits: later that year she said her statements had been taken out of context. The Dawn report of her press conference carried no retraction, so the dispute over her meaning stayed unresolved. I found nothing else of this kind, and nothing from her against LGBTQ+ people or anyone else. Her record is on women's rights, democracy and the environment.
She also went into formal politics. She is described as a one-time Tetu MP and assistant minister for Environment and Natural Resources. Her whole career was staking her body and freedom on public goods like parks, forests, women's livelihoods and political freedom, usually against people with much more power.