Summary - Gendered Interests and the Environment from the book “Gender and Green Governance” Bina Agarwal, Oxford University Press
In this chapter the writer specifying that the relationship between women and the environment in general and forests in particular is complex and difficult to comprehend. The complexity is visualized in the realm of three different interests. Recognizing the “opposing pull of conservation and survival needs” the other two concerns are indicated by both cooperation and conflict between men and women, and between women representing different socio-economic groups. It is recognition of this dynamics that allows an understanding of the women’s role in environmental governance. Covering this chapter the writer stresses on the conceptual framework that leads to women’s interest in environmental governance.
Different stakes in forest conservation between men and women arise due to the differences in the way they value forests. Women differ from men both in the nature of their dependence on community forests and its extent. Therefore, women are more liable to be adversely affected by forest degradation. The difference in the nature of dependence on forests between men and women arises from the gender division of labour on one hand and division of economic resources on the other. The former affects the nature of women’s dependence on non-privatised natural resources and the latter affects the extent of that dependence. It is the particular responsibilities within the household that defines the nature of this dependence. In case of the rural South Asia, not only women have longer workdays than men, they also play such roles that link them to forests and village commons. In such cases women are mainly responsible for cooking, cattle care and gathering fuel and fodder. Men are affected by scarcities of timber for repairing agricultural implements or the houses in which they live. However, women’s need for firewood and fodder is for subsistence while men’s need may be ocassional and can be deferred.
The difference in the extent of dependence on common property resources (CPRs) arises from women’s less access to private property and income-earning opportunities. In many male headed households, there is no guarantee of access to male-controlled income for purchasing firewood or there is no access to family land for growing firewood yielding trees.Again, forests and village commons provide important supplements to daily diets of the poor households. Further, forests also offer other services for women in the absence of proper toilets, place for some respite and a place for social interaction.Women can also distinguish between smoky and smoke-free plants that can be used as firewood. All this has an impact on what men and women prioritize in terms of plant species.
Therefore, men and women can be affected differently by forest decline and degradation in six important ways: time, income, nutrition, health, social-support networks and knowledge systems.Rural women spend nearly 10 to 12 hours daily engaged in household chores and collection of fuel, fodder and water. Their working day gets longer with depletion or reduced access to forests. Further, the excess time spent on collection of fuel and fodder has an adverse effect on crop income of the where women are primary cultivators. A reduction of gathered items from forests and village commons can also reduce the women’s income directly.
Again, as the area and productivity of village commons and forests fall, so does the contribution of gathered food in the diets of poor households which has adverse nutritional effects.
In terms of direct impact on the health of women in the rural households in countries like India, it is seen that high dependence on unprocessed biofuels lead to serious diseases linked to the respiratory system. Although, risks associated with firewood that are smoky are also harmful, it needs to be noted that with depletion of forest resources it become more difficult for the women to collect less smoky species for use within the household.
The gathering of forests products also necessitate wide knowledge of nutritional and medicinal properties of plants which is pushed back due to the degradation of forests.
It is in the above context that a discussion on women as conservationists is also brought forward. It is pointed out those poor women with their substantial dependence on common pool resources would be faced with serious conflict between the interest in forest conservation and their survival needs. In case of acute shortage, the values the women are argued to possess, such as values of nurturing, may take a backseat and may lead women not toward conservation. The gendered nature of interests in particular species also has practical implications for conservation. Timber extraction can cause heavy felling of trees and this can cause much more destruction than extraction of fodder or firewood. So for the short term, men may appear to be more conservationists, in the long run they may prove to be less so. It is also to be noted that a shared interest in forest improvement provides scope for women and men to cooperate in forest protection, but differences in the nature and time horizon of men’s and women’s interest provides scope for gender conflict over when and what to extract.
Women have played an important role in agitational collective action in terms of significant presence, yet effective participation requires women to express their position and have an impact on the decision making.
Given the nature of difference and complexity, village communities dependent on forests have many reasons to cooperate in managing the common pool resource. This shared interest can lead a group of men and women to act collectivity in defining boundaries and laying out spheres where those included and those excluded from the protected forests are well demarcated. Whereas, within the village, groups dependent on forest for raw materials and fodder may be in conflict with the group who have other livehood resources.
Thus, bargaining for forest products can be an ongoing process since distribution is not a one-time event and products change as seasons do. When dealing with common pool resources, the time dimension becomes extremely important both in the regeneration capacity of the resource and in the need for the resource. The products of forest of particular interest to men and women are not only different but they also vary in their gestation period.
Practically, cooperative conflicts can play out in making of forest rules in the extent to which rules are followed, in a way that forest is protected and in the nature of outcomes that brings about equity.
