She was the first woman who got the Nobel Peace Prizein 2004 for her campaigns to save Kenyan forests. Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai, died on September 25th while undergoing treatment for cancer at a hospital in Nairobi. She worked over the last decades to plant over 20 million trees throughout Africa. She always had to battle with the government of her country. She was imprisoned and brutalised, but she won.

In 1977 Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement. The organisation will outlast her. “You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them,” she said and she was definitly right.

Here you’ll find a video (“I will be a hummingbird”) that is worth watching to get a sense of Wangari Maathai.

At the organisations homepage you can share your condolences.

In cooperation with the British Council GLOBAL IDEAS will periodically present you with portraits and updates of the 'International Climate Champions'. The Climate Champion programme recognizes young people from all over the world, who are doing an outstanding job in campaigning and working for the protection of our climate.

Today, please meet Anoka Abeyrathne, a Climate Champion from Sri Lanka:

Anoka has been given the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Youth Award 2010. At the age of 14 she started working on the protection of the wetlands of Sri Lanka to combat Climate Change. Until today Anoka has helped replant more than 12,000 Mangroves in Sri Lanka. She is an activist in the South Asian Youth Climate Action Network. In 2010 she became a British Council International Climate Champion and was the Sri Lankan delegate to the Youth Forum on Climate Finance 2010 in Shanghai.

When the Berlinale, Germany's biggest film festival, takes place early every year even Hollywood is stopping by. For ten days lots of well known actors and directors are giving the capital the shiny flair of a movie metropolis. The eyes of the media are on Berlin.

Could you imagine a setting more fitting to highlight the importance of saving our climate?

That's why the festival is accompanied by a huge display of the iconic "HOLYWOOD" lettering from the Hollywood hills – in the "Tiergarten" park in Berlin's center. Artist Ralf Schmerberg has build up the installation to support the initiative "10,000 Trees for Berlin" and a book about the forest. The installation will be at the Tiergarten until the 20th of February 2011. You will hardly miss the sign between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburger Gate, because the letters are huge, 13 meters tall and all together about 53 meters wide.

So, what is the initiative meant to achieve? Well, 10,000 trees are currently missing on the streets of Berlin. The NGO's plan is to fill the empty spots in the city with new trees. Everyone can participate by sponsoring one or more of the missing trees. Trees are valuable and wood is holy, so to speak – hence the apparent misspelling in the sign.

For more information please visit the project's website.