“Environment” totally uses in our life and our living needs. The importance of environment surrounds women – the family, the home and the locality because worldwide, women are the primary users and providers of natural resources for basic survival such as cooking, collecting fuel, wood, and water as well as agriculture and harvesting.
According to The Greenbook, National Assembly of Women and the Environment, “Why women and environment? Because women, as approximately half of the world’s population, through both action and inaction in environmental management, are critical determinants in advancing a sustainable future. Women, as managers, producers, and consumers are “managing” ecosystems, whether for good or ill. Throughout history women have operated as integrators, connectors, converters and managers of natural, and often limited, resources. Linking children and the elderly, homes and markets, production and domestic resource uses, and often converting raw materials to usable products, women are practitioners, major uses, consumers and experts in myriad ways that in the aggregate, determine many ecological capacities and qualities.
In your opinion, what do you think about the role of women in environment? And how are they related to each other?
According to The Greenbook, National Assembly of Women and the Environment, “Why women and environment? Because women, as approximately half of the world’s population, through both action and inaction in environmental management, are critical determinants in advancing a sustainable future. Women, as managers, producers, and consumers are “managing” ecosystems, whether for good or ill. Throughout history women have operated as integrators, connectors, converters and managers of natural, and often limited, resources. Linking children and the elderly, homes and markets, production and domestic resource uses, and often converting raw materials to usable products, women are practitioners, major uses, consumers and experts in myriad ways that in the aggregate, determine many ecological capacities and qualities.
In your opinion, what do you think about the role of women in environment? And how are they related to each other?
8 comments:
Some of your opinions had already in my mind. I always wonder that why the role of women does not pay enough attention. But I want to argue with you in the number of women in the world. Absolutely, female always is over a half of human being. That why, I, a woman, want to contribute my best effort in environmental field. But the discrimination of male against female is a barrier that I can not pass through. My husband, my father, my mother and my family etc often criticize me because I faced to many harmful cases, exposed toxic chemical compositions, travel a lot, threaten situations etc. So how to solve this problem. Please, suggest your ideas.
Women play crucial role in helping the communities and societies of the region to improve the condition of the environment and achieve sustainable development. Indeed, as farmers, housewives, mothers or social mobilizers,
The role of women in sustainable development and the environment has been highlighted since the 1980s. However, over the last decade, three key initiatives have provided an international and regional framework within which women’s issue may be viewed: the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992; the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 1995, and; ASEAN's Vision 2020 Statement, 1998. (State of Environment, 2000)
These documents have set the tone for, and determined the shape of, environment-related programmes at national, regional and international levels.
The Beijing Platform, for example, proposes specific actions to promote women's access to education, inheritance, economic resources and decision-making. Women’s NGOs utilised the opportunities arising from these international and regional initiatives to revive, reactivate and strengthen movements at the national and local levels. (SOE 2000)
In my opinion, I am a man but I acknowledge to women role. Women had done successfully in many environment activities. One of the most well known success stories of women's participation in environmental protection is the Chipko movement. This grew out of grassroots opposition to the destruction of India's forests, which saw villagers seeking to protect this vital resource through the Gandhian method of non-violent resistance. In the 1970s and 1980s, the movement achieved a 15-year ban on green felling in the Himalayan forests of Uttar Pradesh, stopped clear felling in the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas and generated pressure for a natural resource policy which is more sensitive to people's and ecological requirements.
In response to Pisanee,
Akompab says Please to share with your point I will like you to consider this statement. “Humans are at the centre of concern for sustainable development .They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.”
I will like to capitalize on the word” Sustainable Development”. This aspect sounds normal, but its achievement is rather very demanding. Therefore, this is where the role of women is highly manifested.
Women have a very essential role to play in the development of sustainable and ecologically sound consumption and production pattern {UN Report-September 1995}.Sustainable development is not possible without the engagement of women. This explains why the active participation of women in environmental actions is a crucial determinant to meet the Millennium Development Goals. {Fresco, 1985}
Women are highly responsible in performing the survival task. The survival task here refers to the essential requirement for daily life such as providing water for household, gathering fuel wood, and relying on agriculture. For example, a 1985 UNFAO study indicates that in Africa, women account for about 80 percent of agricultural production..
The wide spread deterioration of the environment is no longer a problem of just a few scientists and environmentalist, but the active involvement of women. This explains why in its March 1992 report, the UNESCO stated that;
-the knowledge of women is needed to design habitat whether urban or rural.
-that male perception to solve environmental problems need to be augmented or increased by women’s perception,
-That human capacity needed to heal the world is not lacking within a community of women,
-That the ability of women to say” No” is alive and well.
I will not terminate this opinion without emphasizing the role of women in Community Based Natural Resource {CBNRM}.Women play a very important role in CBNRM. For example women collect honey from beehives, managing agricultural land and ensuring soil fertility, they make decisions about seed selection, timing of planting season , women do not cut trees thus protecting the soil{Rodda et al1991}.
Conclusively therefore, there is a direct relationship between women and environment when it comes to sustainable development. That is why one of the key principles adopted in the platforms for action in the Un Fourth World Conference on Women is to involve women in environmental decision making at all levels.
It is imperative to review the theory of ‘ecofeminism” in any discussion concerning the role of women in the environment. Ecofeminism accentuates the importance of women in nature and their related roles as caregivers, mothers and food providers for their family. Traditionally, women have been subservient to men in a patriarchal society where men make the primary decisions over the use of natural resources.
In indigenous communities women traditionally served as mothers, cultivators and gatherers of food, this role is depicted in the myth and folklore, as a women, or earth goddess. Ecofeminists point to the intimate relationship between women and nature, and their function as mothers. “Women’s monthly fertility cycle , the tiring symbiosis of pregnancy, the wrench of childbirth and the pleasure of suckling an infant, these things already ground women’s consciousness in the knowledge of being coterminous with nature” (Salleh as cited by Agarwal 2007). This position as a reproducer was highly valued by traditional society, as large families were necessary to engage in agricultural activities and provide for the family as a whole. In periods of drought or famine women gathered wild plants in the forests which provided a means of subsistence in these difficult times (Agarwal 2007). Although, these communities were hierarchal, male dominated societies, women’s work was the cornerstone of village life.
The industrial revolution and later on the green revolution, placed little value on the women’s role in the family as labor became necessary to fuel economic growth. The result of this development path was disintegration of the traditional framework of village life (Shiva 2006). As many women were forced to move into more formal industries, they had less time to spend growing crops and take care of the family. This economic shift led to a detachment from nature and a rapid transformation of rural ecosystems. The industrial revolution has led to a patriarchal society based on the mastering and controlling nature. Those who make decisions over the use of natural resources are predominantly male, and the forests are viewed as a source of inputs to fuel economic growth.
Ecofeminists argue that women are more apt to see the world from an ecological perspective, in their responsibilities as mothers, food providers and caregivers. The ecological crisis is the product of a male dominated society focused on manipulating nature for greater output rather than maintaining balance through ecological well-being. As the traditional role of women has greatly changed under the current economic paradigm, more sustainable development necessitates the increased participation of women in natural resource management at a local, national and global level.
In response to Pisane, women comprise more than half the world’s population. Too often in the front line in terms of poverty, sustaining communities and managing the earth’s biodiversity and natural resources, women are also uniquely vulnerable to environment – related health issues. Despite their role and their know – how, women’s contribution is often undervalued and ignored (message of UN Secretary General, International Women’s Day 2006). Women in developing regions are more likely than men to work in agriculture, and as contributing but unpaid family workers. Worldwide, over 60 per cent of unpaid family workers are women – meaning that women continue to lack access to job security and social protection (MDG Report, 2007). Although women produce most subsistence foods as well as cash crops, they control only about 1% of the world's land (FAO, statistics). In this respect, the relationship between women and the environment is far more complex than the dominant discourse makes it out to be. In general, it lacks an in-depth gender analysis and makes assumptions about women's relationship with the environment without accounting for the role that men play in influencing that relationship. None of this is to say that more involvement of women in environmental issues wouldn't have positive consequences.
In response to Pisani,Its not a doubt that,sound environment management requir a holistic, multidisciplinary and intersectoral approach.Womens participation and leadership are essential to every aspects of that approach.
Womens role in sustainable environment is extreamly essential in every organisations,including family,localy,regionaly and in global concept.
Forinstance, In certain regions, women are generally the most stable members of the community,as men often pursue work in distant locations leaving women to safeguard the natural environment and ensure adequate and sustainable
resourse allocation within the household and the community(UN report1995).
I wold like to draw your attention
to women, especially indigenious women have perticular knowledge of ecological linkages and fragile ecosystem management.Women in many communities provide the main labour force for subsistance production,including Agriculture, even production of seafood hence their role is crucial to the provision of food and nutrition,the enhansement of the subsistance of informal sectors and the preservation of environment.
On the otherhand,Women have often played leadership roles or taken the lead in promoting an environmental ethic,reducing resourse use,reusing and recycling
resourses to minimize waste and exessive consumption.Women can have a participatary powerful role in influencing sustainable consumption decisions.In addition,women"s contribution to environment management,including through grass-roots and youth campaigns to protect the environment have often take place
at the local level where decentralized action on environmental issues is most needed
and decisive.
Recent United nations Global conference on development as well as well as regional preperatory conference for the fourth world Conference on women, have all acknowledged that sustainable development policies that do not involve women an men alike will not succeed in the long run. they have called for the effective paticipating of women in the generation of knowledge and environment al education decision making and management at all levels.(UN fourth world conference on women-1995)
So to see the ecolgicaly sound environment,and sustainable future in environment,Womens"e experiences
and contribution must be considerd centraly.
Finaly Sustainable development will be an elusive goal unless womens contribution to environmental management is recognized and supported.
Most men leaders in the world have women as their supporters, their wives, who play an important role. Recently, the first lady of France played a big role in releasing five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of having deliberately infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV. Many people said that it wasn’t her duty. In my point of view it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t her duty, but the result is what matters, would the nurses and the doctor be released without her help.
My point is that, there are very few women in decision-making positions, or as leading negotiators, especially in natural resource and environmental management, although women have the capabilities to do so. We’re from 7 countries how many Ministers with Natural Resource portfolios are women? The UN Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality presents (see summary of the Online Discussions Held in Preparation for the 10 Year Review and Appraisal of the Implementation of the Platform for Action in the 49th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women) that committees and organizations for natural resource management managed by women are more efficient, transparent and effective.
Why is it very rare to see women playing important leadership roles in environmental management? From my point of view, gender equity, culture, and lack of education are the main obstacles. Education is the primary way to tackle gender inequality and organization change is also needed; decision-making positions should have both men and women.
Women can play strong roles in protection and rehabilitation of the environment. Having the opportunity to acquire knowledge and experience and equal opportunities to work in decision-making positions can give women more power in voicing their environmental concerns. And, we should not forget that there have been many examples of strong leadership from women, most notably the leadership role of Gro Harlem Brundtland on sustainable development.
Interesting to know.
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