Johannesburg — Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has warmly welcomed the award of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to environmentalist Wangari Maathai. He also supported the Nobel committee's identification of environmental issues as crucial to peace.

"How wonderful for Africa and for women!" said Tutu in an emailed comment to AllAfrica from a retreat in New Jersey in the United States. The award demonstrates that the Nobel Committee is "alert" to a underlying cause of much current conflict, he said. "When resources get scarce we fight over them, so environmental issues are crucial to war and peace; just look at Darfur - and wasn't Iraq attacked also for oil?"

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which selects the Peace Prize recipient, noted in its announcement that Maathai would be the first woman from Africa, and "the first African from the vast area between South Africa and Egypt" to be awarded the prize.

Archbishop Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 20 years ago, in 1984. Other African recipients have been Chief Albert Luthuli, leader of South Africa's African National Congress (1960), Egyptian leader Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat (1978), and Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk of South Africa (1993).