12 Feb 07

A woman who has already been responsible for planting more than 35 million trees in Africa travelled thousands of miles to plant just one.

Environmentalist and human rights campaigner, Professor Wangari Maathai, was in Oxford on Saturday 10 February to plant a walnut tree in the Fellow's Garden of Exeter College to mark the UK launch of the Billion Tree Campaign.

Professor Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya in the mid 1970s to try and curtail the effects of deforestation and desertification. She is internationally recognised for her struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation and she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She is the Patron of, and provided the inspiration for, the United Nations Environmental Programme's (UNEP) Billion Tree Campaign.

As Patron of the UNEP's Billion Tree Campaign, Professor Maathai marked the UK launch by planting a tree in Oxford. Individuals, conservation groups, community groups, businesses, and local and central government bodies are invited to sign an online pledge to 'plant for the planet': go to www.greenbeltmovement.org for more details on pledging a tree and the Green Belt Movement.

Professor Maathai was a guest speaker at an environmental seminar at Exeter College. The seminar marks the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was sponsored by Earth Charter UK, an organisation which promotes a sustainable and peaceful world. It looked at how to address the issue of climate change and included speakers from the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, at McGill University, Montreal, and the Earth Charter.