jmtaberne msc essay women as environmental managers

7/30/2019 JMTaberne MSc Essay Women as Environmental Managers

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University of Bristol

Department of Social Policy & Social Planning

MSc course in Development Administration & Planning

Name: Jos-Mara Tabern Abad

EssayTitle: What role do women play as environmental managers in developingcountries? Answer with reference to rural areas.

Module Title: Resource and Environmental Management

Lecturer: Ben Oakley

Spring Term 1995


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Environmental problems do not only result from the development process itself but alsofrom the very lack of development1. The scarcely capital-endowed, predominantlyagricultural economies of developing countries, depend on the availability and quality ofnatural resources for the sustained use of the bioproductive systems of agriculture,ranching, forestry and fishery2.

Environmental degradation is putting increasing pressure on rural women. Thehousehold economy in which rural women actively participate is based almost entirely inbiomass. The extent of their dependence on environmental resources is clearlydemonstrated through the income they derive from agricultural produce and othersmall-scale economic enterprise. These monetised activities as well as the non-monetised ones depend on reliable rural supplies. In this respect changes inenvironmental conditions are a threat to the economic survival of women3.

In the art of the Stone Age, woman's representations and magic is primary, and of

nature, as transformers, mediators, maintainers and sustainers of life, gathering roots,berries, and small game4. The feminine qualities of receptivity, of nurturing in silenceand secrecy are as essential to creation as their masculine opposites and in no wayinferior5. Throughout cultures and civilisations we find myths -like those of Eve, Isis,Gaia, Demeter, Persephone, Sakti, and Kore- which by focusing on fertility, theagricultural cycle, the forests, water streams and other themes, one way or anotherconclude that the bedrock of women's consciousness is the need to preserve life6 andthat the earth is our mother, not belonging to man; but that man belongs to the earth7.

In many developing countries, rural women are primarily responsible for household and

farming activities as well as the management of local resources. Therefore, women'straditional tasks, experiences, knowledge and concerns about local problems areessential in solving emerging environmental problems such as deforestation, soilerosion and the scarcity of food, fodder, fuel, wood and water8.

According to the 1994 Human Development Report, in 1992 about 65% of the totaldeveloping countries' population was rural, and 58% of the total workforce werewomen. Extrapolating these figures, one may conclude that 37.7% of the totaldeveloping countries manpower -in both rural and urban environments- are ruralwomen.

However, women's participation is constrained in many ways. Institutional andorganisational support for education and training for women in modern communityactivities is far from established. Other factors such as the lack of access to andparticipation of women in local village councils, limit the efectiveness and efficiency ofoperations9 devised to avoid environmental degradation.

This essay reaffirms recent views that rural women, despite their long, hard workschedules and their lack of formal education or training, can collectively use thetraditional knowledge and awareness gained from daily-living experiences in effectivelymanaging their local environment10. Given the breadth of this subject, I will focus on a


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limited number of specific issues: Firstly, I will review the central elements of genderand development and woman's general role, women's participatory processes and theirlimitations. I will then focus on woman's patterns of involvement in environmentalmanagement in rural areas. Finally I will describe an outline of the institutionalframework needed to encourage and support women's sucess in playing such a crucial

role. Being the provision of energy for cooking a central task for women to ensureadequate energy supply for their household requirements, I will take forestry relatedactivities as sample leading argumental line.

Gender, Development and Environment.

In most low-income Third World households women have a triple role. 'Women's work'includes not only reproductive work, the childbearing and rearing responsibilitiesrequired to guarantee the maintenance and reproduction of the labour force. It alsoincludesproductivework, often as secondary income earners. In rural areas this usually

takes the form of agricultural work. Also, women undertake community managementwork around the provision of items of collective consumption11.

Women, in their acceptance of the gender division of labour, see the house as theirsphere of dominance and take primary responsibility for the provision of consumptionneeds12. In their reproductive role, rural women depend on the resources of wood,water and soil for daily survival, and as such are the primary users of theenvironment13. For women the point of residence includes not only the home butextends into the sorrounding areas; social relationships include not only householdmembers but also neighbours. Mobilization and organisation at the community level is a

natural extension of their domestic work

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; the interconnection of female ecological,'organic' and survival values is evident in the nature of activities undertaken by womenin tree growing15, for example. Women are motivated to grow trees not only for fuel,fodder, fruit, as windbreaks, for fencing and for shade and construction materials16.Firstly, women are aware of the benefit of tree growing activities, such as soil andwater conservation. Secondly, they have the desire to better the quality of theenvironment for future generations17, thus explicitly assuming the most re-citeddefinition of sustainable development advanced by WCED (1987:43) as 'developmentthat meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs'.

Ecology, a study of relations between animals, plants, people and their environment,ethimologically comes from the Greekaikos, a house, and logos, discourse; words sucheconomy, ecodevelopment, even gynecology have the same ethymological roots.Women's 'greening of consciousness' as pronounced by H. Skolimowsky18 has norelation to the fact that today -at least in the developed world- the idea ofenvironmental protection has gained general currency though blocking -for themoment- the ecological thinking, because environmental protection and ecology areconfused with each other19.

Woman's patterns of involvement


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First World psychologists says that many of the difficulties that women face todayfollow from the fact that they are moving into fields of action that were formerlyreserved for the male and for which there are no female mythological models. So thewoman finds herself in a competitive relationship with the male, and in this may lose

the sense of her own nature20. Generally speaking, in the Third World the communitypolitics role, in contrast to community management role, comprises activitiesundertaken by men at the community level organizing at the formal political level21.Because of their reproductive and community management roles, environmentalmanagment is considered a Practical Gender Need, as one of those that are formulatedfrom the concrete conditions women experience, such as food, shelter, water andfirewood needs. Thus Shiva22 describes forestry in the following terms: There are inIndia, today, two paradigms of forestry -one life-enhancing, the other life-destroying.The former emerges from the forest and the feminine principle; the latter from thefactory and the market, so underlining the collision of both concepts23 of forestry, as

'soil, water and pure air', and 'profit, resin and timber'.

Concerning wildlife and biodiversity, it is difficult to ascertain wether its preservationdoes not collide with women's reproductive work; little research has been done: In thepopulous, poor countrysides of Africa, wild game has always formed a high percentageof the meager protein diet; thus "nama", the Hausa word for animal, also means"meat". In West Africa, the need for animal protein has all but eliminated the wildanimals24. Unlike Kenya and Tanzania, where the ambivalent attitude toward wildlife isquite similar but where the economic impetus of tourism is clear, these countries seesmall reason to protect what is left of their wildlife, far less restore what is now gone25.

In short, one is continually being reminded by Nigerians that theirs is the most denselypopulated nation in Africa and that perhaps, therefore, there is no place for wildlife26.

But women's role is not ambiguous in agricultural environmental management: An FAOsurvey of Sub-saharan Africa has found that some 50 million rural people now have nofuel for cooking and that another 130 million are getting some wood, but at theexpense of valuable forest. Women mostly work on subsistence food production whilemen produce cash crops27. Population pressure associated with deforestation andunwise farming techniques is the major factor leading to degradation of soils28. Manyaspects of social organisation are related to water availability29. Water conservation isclosely linked with soil conservation and with good crop and animal husbandry30. Evenwithout examining the multiple examples available on women's few but widespreadfields of expertise, the above overall examination reveals that women are among themost experienced and motivated rural actors and resource managers31. However, theirimpact could well be improved.

Institutional framework

Historically, top-down state intervention alone has not removed any of the persistentcauses of gender inequality within society32. Poverty and the distribution of land are themain social factors affecting the productvity and conservation of land33. The traditional


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view of planning methodology as a neutral and universally applicable set of technicalprocedures has been citicized34. Strategic Gender Needs are those that are formulatedfrom the analysis of women's subordination to men: Rights to own land or property, oraccess to credit have an effect on women's capability to materialize their views andpriorities in most respects, including the environment. Recent research results indicate

that 80 per cent of all households in the developing countries depend on wood as theirprimary source of energy. If present trends continue, the woodfuel supplies of manyhundreds of millions of people will be exhausted long before the oilfields on which theindustrialized world depends have run dry35. A balanced pattern of land use andenvironmental exploitation is important in maintaining the resource base on which ruralenergy supplies depend. Industries such as those of timber, plywood and food alsoexert tremendous pressure on the forests and cultivated land. The external demandgenerated by these products has contributed to environmental degradation within theforest areas36.

Bartelmus (84:1994) in his 'framework for sustainable growth and development'proposes public awareness and participation as a major means of local sustainabledevelopment. This proactive (anticipatory) policy recognizes the key role ofgovernments. On the other hand a typical view, provided by the Bruntland Report,identifies the critical function of NGOs to ensure sustainable development37. Among thevarious policy approaches to Third World women, the Empowerment issue38 comesparallel to that of community Empowerment, which has been considered by UNCED asthe key to facilitating the participation of local populations in the sustainabledevelopment of their communities. In turn, 'disempowerment' of local communities hasbeen flagged as the root cause of environmental decline in developing countries39. It

remains to be seen to what extent top-down regional planning can provide anappropriate framework for the active participation of grass-roots organisations in thedesign and implementation of projects and programmes40. As a consequence, someamount of central governmental authority would have to be delegated to localorganisations41.

Third World NGOs are not a new phenomenon: they exist in most areas of local andnational public interest. Characteristics also include a broadening of their functions fromtraditional relief and welfare concerns to development-orientated and productionsupport activities, including areas previously regarded as the 'exclusive prerrogative ofgovernment'. In adition, they experiment an increase42 in their complexity andsophistication. This relates both to their internal structures as well as to their militancyand mobilization capacity. NGOs have strengthened contacts with other NGOs,establishing linkage systems between them. The proliferation of such networks andinstitutional structures during the past decade makes it important to identify theunderlying reasons why NGOs have assumed such importance, in terms of bothnumbers and scope. The most important organizational characteristic in NGOs has beentheir capacity to incorporate voluntarism into an organized structure. This results in apotential 'to mobilize into organized structures of voluntary group action for self-reliance and self-development'. Traditionally, their role has been identified as analternative entry point for local-level social development. Their comparative advantage


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over government lies in the ways they relate to beneficiaries, as well as their freedom inorganizing themselves43.

This also reflects the World Bank's position on the efficiency approach to WID: womenare key factors in the forestry sector throughout the developing world. Ensuring their

direct involvement in forestry projects, both as beneficiaries and participants, canensure that projects achieve their immediate purposes and broad socio-economic goals,as well as maximize returns on investment in this sector44.

In the rural context, however, the critical role of environmental and agricultural factorsand their developmental relationships, including agrarian structures and reforms needto be examined45. Women sometimes face cultural restrictions on work outside thehousehold compound46. There are also problems of ethnic conflict within somecommunity-based groups47. The increasing problems of fuelwood supply lead toconflicts for women who combine their role in productive activities such as farming,

fishmongering and market gardening with domestic activities48

.

However, in Africa for example, the economic and organisational base continues tobuild its strength through the spontaneous growth and dominance of women'sautonomous self-help associations in private spheres49. Where small farmers areconcerned, the formation of groups or cooperatives can provide a means of puttinglimited resources to fuller use50, being also used in several developing countries asviable institutions for community participation51. In a recent study five women groupsinterviewed identified similar constraints to their tree growing activities: lack ofsufficient inputs; infestations; shortage of water, manure, fencing and containers; a

continous lack of organisational and management skills; lack of proper training; scarcityof land; time constraints; lack of capital to enhance activities; irregular extensionservices and non-recognition of their activities by the government. Additionally, it wasobserved that heterogeinity both within each group and between the groups (withrespect to age, education, status, motivation) proved somewhat problematic52. Inplanning, designing and programming suitable projects and in ensuring that participantsare the beneficiaries, international agencies, government departments and the NGOsconcerned have begun to consider viable forms of co-operation, leadership andincentives among women. Some of them include indigenous forms of co-operation suchas kinship, marital or age groups53.

Conclusion

In spite of some forty years of planned development, women's status in India is farfrom satisfactory54. For instance, gender bias in the distribution of work, income andwealth, especially in rural subsistence communities, has been blamed for deprivingwomen of the results of economic growth and making them suffer the brunt ofpressures on forests and croplands55. Women claim that most of the successfulprogrammes using community participation as a principal method of operation havebeen run by non-governmental organisations. Several reasons are advanced: NGOs areunencumbered by bureaucratic machinery, their projects are usually on a smaller scale,


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making community participation easier to achieve; because of their charitable naturethey are more likely to employ highly motivated people unconcerned about careerprospects; and they find it easier to be innovative and initiate experimental projectsthat demonstrate a potential usually ignored by bureaucrats56.

For those people in less developed countries, the elimination of poverty is a prerequisitefor any action on global environmental concerns57. Ecodevelopment is considered apractical way of directly improving conditions of poverty in situand in sympathy withcustom, tradition and environment58. Exhortations to the need to develop a 'satisfactorysocial ecosystem' (one of the features of ecodevelopment) or of the vital role of socialgroups, notably women, in environmental management and development are notenough59.

According to Ghana's 1984 national population census, women outnumbered men infood production and animal husbandry60. As more and more men went into cash crop

production, women, who were discouraged from participating in the agricultural exporteconomy, were narrowly restricted to the production of subsistence crops for feedingthe family61. Women have been severely affected by dominantly male-orientateddevelopment strategies. Concepts such as local as opposed to externally-imposeddevelopment are as important an element as that of sustainable use of resources, orself-reliance.

Although some separate membership organisations for women provide greaterautonomy of expression and opportunities for women to develop skills, leadership andself-confidence, they often limit their political representation in decision-making bodies

at the district level. Integrated organisations which equally represent men and womenmay be an ideal approach for creating sustainable rural development62. Communityparticipation in environmental issues needs to be viewed as the articulation anddevelopment of the agendas of local people based on their knowledge of the localenvironment and economy63. Nevertheless, scarce human resources need to berecognized and their services rewarded, even if conventional accounts and economicsstill consider them as free gifts. The case in point is women's involvement in naturalresource management64.

Many articles maintain that favourable conditions exist in farming communities forenvironmental actions and development approaches based on sustainable development,since these areas have suffered from the negative effects of degradation65.

Many development agents have noticed that women are the wood collectors so it isimportant to obtain their views when a tree project is planned66. The value of foddertrees is immense where livestock is kept, particularly as they are likely also to providefuel and to enrich the soil67. Beekeeping has long been practised in the tropics. Itprovides farmers with honey, beeswax and pollination68.

The organisation of groups of people around these resources is of paramountimportance. But the formation of new groups is time-consuming. Hence some agencies


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are inclined to work with existing groups. However, in many cases, existing groups arelikely to be dominated by elites; they also tend to be characterized by thepredominance of men over women, and by the landed over the landless69. For thesereasons, NGOs frequently find it desirable to identify or encourage the establishment ofnew groups, often on a 'special interest' basis within existing communities. This is a

particularly important device for enhancing women's development prospects70.

This essay has tried to argue that degradation does not arise from the present actionsof a multitude of individual producers but is rooted in the economic history of the socialsystem and the nature of its integration into the world market. These factors influencethe way in which people interact with the environment. Environmental degradation is along-term process whose impact falls more heavily on future generations, a fact whichis naturally felt by women. The study of rural environmental consciousness, in thecontext of the dynamics of interactions between the human and natural worlds and thelogic of past actions and their unforeseen consequences, can make a valuable

contribution to environmental management71

.

ENDNOTES

1. Bartelmus, P. (1994), p.62. Ibid, p.23

3. Pratt, B (1990), p.154. Campbell, J. (1980), p.755. Ibid, p.116. Moser, C. (1993), p.367. Luke, H. (1980), p.118. Momsen, J. (1993), p.309. Ibid, p.4210. Ibid, p.3111. Moser, C., p.2812. Ibid, p.3413. Ibid, p.5314. Ibid, p.3515. Momsen, J. p.3116. Ibid, p.3917. Ibid, p.4118. Ghai, D. (1994) p.73719. Bahro, R. (1994), p.1120. Campbell, J. p.7421. Moser, C. p.3422. Ibid, p.5423. Ibid, p.53


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24. Matthiessen, P. (1992), p.11625. Ibid, p.3426. Ibid p.3527. Moser, C. p.3328. Pratt, B. p.244

29. Ibid, p.25030. Ibid, p.25131. Momsen, J. p.4432. Moser, C. p.3933. Pratt, B. p.24134. Moser, C. p.835. Momsen, J. p.1536. Ibid, p.1737. Moser, C. p.19238. Ibid, p.56

39. Bartelmus, P. p.12440. Ibid, p.12541. Ibid, p.12442. Moser, C. p.19343. Ibid, p.19444. Ibid, p.15245. Momsen, J. p.1346. Farrington, J. (1993) p.8647. Ibid, p.10848. Momsen, J. p.21

49. Ibid, p.3250. Pratt, B. p.24251. Momsen, J. p.3352. Ibid, p.4253. Ibid, p.3254. Ibid, p.12055. Bartelmus, P. p.6756. Momsen, J. p.23157. Bartelmus, P. p.2258. Ibid, p. xv59. Ibid, p.12160. Momsen, p.1961. Ibid, p.1862. Ibid, p.4563. Matthiessen, p.6564. Bartelmus, p.12165. Matthiessen, p.4166. Pratt, B. p.26567. Ibid, p.26768. Ibid, p.29769. Farrington, J. p.108


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70. Ibid, p.10971. Ghai p.43

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Campbell, J. (1980) The Great Goddess. Parabola Volume V, No.4. New York, N.Y.:Society for the Study of Mith and Tradition.

2. Luke, H. (1980) The perennial feminine. Parabola Volume V, No.4. New York, N.Y.:Society for the Study of Mith and Tradition.

3. New Webster's Dictionary (1992). New York, N.Y.: Ottenheimer Publishers.

4. Bahro, R. (1994) Avoiding social & ecological disaster. Bath: Gateways Books.

5. Moser, C. (1993) Gender Planning and Development. London: Routledge.

6. Pratt, B. (1990) The Field Director's Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7. Momsen, J. (1993) Different places, different voices. London: Routledge.

8. Bartelmus, P. (1994) Environment, growth and development. London: Routledge.

9. Farrington, J. (1993) Reluctant partners? London: Routledge.

10. Marien, R. Environmental problems and sustainable futures. Futures. Vol 24, n 8 .October 1992.

11. Ghai, D. (1994). Ecological Knowledge and the Regional Economy: EnvironmentalManagement in the Asesewa District of Ghana.

12. Matthiessen, P. (1992) African Silences. New York: Vintage Books.

jmtaberne msc essay women as environmental managers

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