Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey,

history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 2007.

Music My castaway this week is the environmentalist and human rights campaigner Wangari Matai.

Known these days as Africa's forest goddess for her pioneering work fighting soil erosion and poverty across the continent,

she's united her passion for the power of nature with a crusade for political justice.

Born the third of six children in the central highlands of Kenya, the family home was a traditional mud-walled house with no electricity or running water. Simple beginnings for someone

who went on to be the first African female

to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Her Greenbelt movement, which through the decades, has trained

30,000 women to plant 30 million trees, is in itself remarkable, but that's only half the story.

A perilous personal fight against political dictatorship, corruption and prejudice

is the other. Every time you provide leadership, she says, every time you speak out, you expect you

you may suffer for what you believe in. So, Wangari Mathai, the suffering has at times come

perilously close to both you and your family. For now, though, let's talk about what you believe in.

It is democracy.

It is the environment.

Where did those beliefs germinate?

I know that growing up in the countryside, green, fresh water, fast-flowing rivers,

no poverty, as we came to know it later.

...