Wangari Maathai would have been 80 years old today. She was the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize, and the first Eastern African woman to receive a PhD. She died in 2011, but her legacy is very much alive – thanks, in part, to your Ecosia searches.

Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her political activism, and for founding the Green Belt Movement, Ecosia’s reforestation partner in Kenya. Your searches are planting trees according to Prof. Maathai’s method. They are mostly planted around critical water sources, preventing erosion, and increasing both the quantity and the quality of the water.

For Wangari Maathai, however, planting trees was never just about restoring the water cycle. It was also about helping people – including the most marginalized – stand up for their human and environmental rights. Share this video to celebrate Wangari Maathai’s 80th birthday!

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Produced by Joshi Gottlieb (IG: @joshigot)
Editing & post-production by Sina Samavati (IG: @sinasamavati)
Writing by Joshi Gottlieb and Shane Thomas McMillan
Cinematography by Shane Thomas McMillan (IG: dokumentarian)

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