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Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, who is visiting Sydney to accept the Lions humanitarian award, said on Thursday that women need to be at the forefront of political and economic change, reports China's Xinhua news agency.

Maathai, the famous environmental and political activist in Kenya, said that it is very important to include women in decision making and political change, and if women are not included, any nation will lose the energy and potential women can bring to the table.

"It is a loss to humanity," she told reporters here.

The US$176,000 (200,000 Australian dollars) award from the international service club would go towards supporting the Wangari Maathai institute to promote environmental training and development.

Born in rural Kenya in 1940, Wangari went on to study in the U. S. and become the first woman in East Africa to get a PhD.

Troubled by the poverty of the rural women in her home country she began a collective to plant trees to provide sustainable development, nutrition and shelter after 100 years of crippling deforestation.

In December 2002, Professor Maathai was elected to parliament with an overwhelming 98 percent of the vote. She was subsequently appointed by the president as Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife in Kenya's ninth parliament. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.