Gender justice is necessary for community forest management (CFM). So how can we build, strengthen and defend gender justice to better care for, protect and manage forests and biodiversity?

First, it’s important that we reflect on women’s role in the traditional use and defence of forests and biodiversity, the need to recognise and make visible this role and the practices that need to be eliminated or strengthened to ensure CFM involves gender justice.

Women are responsible for a variety of tasks related to caring for and protecting forests and biodiversity. The specialised and highly diversified knowledge about forests, agriculture, food, and health that women have developed is traditional, scientific, historical, collective and critical to the well being and culture, spirituality and survival of their community. Unfortunately, their role often goes unacknowledged and is invisibilised. This is detrimental to the safety and security of women and their communities as well as forests and biodiversity. 

Bridging the gap between CFM and gender justice centres life, care, forests, biodiversity and the collective and goes beyond setting a price and establishing ownership over nature and common resources. This can guide our transformation agenda based on demanding women’s rights to other ways of caring for each other that centre fundamental rights.

Download the leaflet on this page to read more.