WOMEN IN NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Mugira Fredrick

This essay concentrates on assessing the importance of including women in natural resource management.
Women, the plural form of woman is used commonly to imply to adult female humans, while natural resources according to Wikipedia encyclopedia refer to, "naturally occurring substances that are considered valuable in their relatively unmodified form." Rodda (1977:72) notes that, “natural resources can be grouped under two categories; renewable and none renewable.” She continues to elaborate ibid that, “the renewable natural resources are mainly plants, and vegetables, animals and humans (while) the non renewable resources are those of water and land.” This draws attention to the fact that natural resources entail man and his surroundings.

Traditionally, women have been excluded from the management of these natural resources this is partly because females and males play different roles in the community.

There are roles that are seen as for males alone and those that are viewed at as belonging to females alone. As Narayan et al (2000:115) argue, “man (is seen) as the provider for the family and the woman taking care of the home.” This draws attention to the fact that society naturally distributes roles that fall under the brackets of production of goods and services, activities done at a community level, and decision making to different people depending on their gender identity or rather what Gregson et al (1997:53) cited in Hatfield ( 2003:3) call, “male or female.”

Women for example have been known traditionally to be engaged much in home chores such as cooking, caring for children and washing of clothes among others. Wilkins (2005:266) writes, “over all women are constituted in most passive roles,” and have not been effectively integrated into the management of the natural resources as Rodda (1997:76) argues that,
“to date, women have not really been perceived to be part of the natural environment conservation scene.”

Meanwhile the females, counterparts, the males are traditionally viewed at as playing several roles in the society such as being decision makers, breadwinners of the family and natural resources managers too.

However, there is need for change in the traditionally gender division of labour to include mostly the women in the management of natural resource.
As Rodda (1997:72) writes, “there is little dispute over the importance of women in managing natural resources, particularly in the development countries.”

Some of these importance include;
The need to have them participate practically in development process of their communities.
Following the failure of modernization and dependency development paradigms, alternative development paradigm which Pieterse (2002:74) notes that implies, “a definite theoretical break with main stream development,” is being employed to bring about an end to misery as a result of underdevelopment in the community.

This paradigm is pro - people and as Pieterse (2002:750) puts it, it is “participatory and people centered.” It gives a chance to everyone regardless of gender and age to participate in development process. With this paradigm, therefore women are seen as patterns of men in bringing about development at household, community and national levels.

This, certainly calls for involvement of women in all affairs including management of natural resources if a participatory and people centered development is to be achieved which could subsequently lead to a sustainable development based on the balanced use of natural resources. .

Secondly, due to the nature of their traditional roles, women come into contact with natural resources so often, this calls for their involvement in management and protection of these resources or else women could, ignorantly destroy these resources to the point of extinction. As Rodda (1997:47) notes, women have direct contact with natural resources , “as they collect essential items for their everyday needs…, (they are) collectors of fuel, food and fodders , water collectors and carries , consumers of industrial goods as producers , farmers and farm workers, as wage labors.” Buckingham (2003) drives this point home when she notes, that traditional roles of women as carers of home and family is extended to the resource which contribute to this. This resource is non other than the natural resource.

Rodda (1997:76) also argues that, “ because of the various roles women play in food processing , farming , agricultural management and family health, it is crucial that their understanding of environmental issues should be increased and their knowledge and skills taken into account in the conservation of natural resources.”

All this puts emphasis to the fact that women due to the nature of their work access natural resources very easily and always, so there is need to involve them in the management of these resources so that they can know the costs and benefits of the sustainable use of these natural resources.

Thirdly with increased poverty levels especially in the southern countries there is need to fight it from two sides as a move intended to eradicate it successfully.. As Narayan et al (2000:11) argue, “in several places, people stress that the poorer the household, the more likely it is that the women will be involved in some form of work,” which was not traditionally theirs.

Likewise Neft and Levine, (1997), Steevens (2000) cited in Wilkins (2005:262) argue that “ women are more likely than men to suffer from poverty, with their access restricted to critical education, health employment and political.” It is important to note that poverty is one of the major causes of natural resource degradation
This draws attention to the fact for the campaign to eradicate poverty to succeed,
women should be left to manage natural resources in their possession and put them to the uses so as to get incomes.

Fourthly, women in the world account for the highest percentage, therefore bringing them on board to be managers of natural resources would mean increased man power in this field. It is important to note that women who are the majority everywhere in the world and most especially in the developing countries constitute the rural poor majority who depend on non other than environment for their lives, so if these women were brought on board as natural resource managers, they would effectively do it more than men do after all men are the minority.

Fifthly, with increased killer diseases in the world and most especially the developing world, such as HIV/Aids, Malaria and Ebola, deaths of men heads of families have been rampant. In times when death takes way the man who has been fulfilling the duty of managing natural resources, if there is no substitute, then such resources could vanish. Therefore there is need to plan for the future early enough and involve both women in management of natural resources so that if their husbands succumb to death, the they (widows) manages the natural resources effectively to benefit the family.

More still women have a wide local knowledge on natural resource management therefore including them in natural resource management would help to tap on this knowledge. Take an example as Bakingham (2003:1) writes that, “ their social role as the main unpaid domestic workers in each household brings them closer to an awareness of environmental hazard whether it is by shopping for food …, preparing that food for safe eating, or caring for the health of their children.” This draws attention to the fact that women have a lot of knowledge on the natural resources and it can be cheaply tapped by engaging them in the management of these resources.

In addition, including women in natural resource management would be another way of empowering them economically among others. By making women managers of these resources, would be helping them to have a ‘say’ in the returns from them. This subsequently would lead to empowerment of women. The last 40 years have seen several movements spring up meant mostly to end inequalities and discrimination based and gender differences.

Movements like Gender Equity Empowerment Framework, Gender and Development, Movement towards recognizing Woman’s roles in Development (WID) have all led to changes in gender division of labor in Africa with mostly females being brought up to limelight to compete with males in several positions . Such movements have helped to address gender gaps at various levels and subsequently led to increased access of females to education, access to information and control of resources and benefits. Such movements would be rendered a failure if women are left out of management of natural resources because these resources are the foundation for everything , from money , to good health to ending poverty and happy life.

Another importance of including women in natural resource management is that women can easily be used as channels of communication for conservation of natural resources. As already noted in this essay, women are the majority and are knowledgeable about local natural resources. On top of these two factors, women also have several organizations that unite them. They meet regularly to share their concerns. Due to these factors, if women are include in the management of natural resources they can effectively help to pass on information concerning natural resource management from one person to another including their husbands and children. This would subsequently help to disseminate information concerning effective conservation of natural resources.

Lastly including women in natural resource management would help to make them feel the ownership of these resources. This means that they there is a chance that they would relate to these resources friendly and that their activities and impacts on the natural resources would be sustainable. This is important because as already noted in this essay, women have direct and repetitive contact with environment due to the nature of their traditional roles. This would also make them play positive roles towards sustainability of these resources because they would be seeing them as theirs.

On the other hand, including women in natural resource management could have negative effects on the society.
These could include distortion of the traditions and norms. Traditionally women have been kept out of natural resource management not for granted but because they concentrated on domestic spheres to offer family care services such as cooking , laundry and procreation. This means that if they take active roles in management of natural resources, they may give up some of their traditional roles hence no one may perform them. No wonder some women are now giving up their traditional roles of caring for children and leaving it to housemaids.

Secondly including women in natural resource management this would lead to competition for this role between men and women. Although sometimes competition is health, it may also come with problems such as do0mestic violence as a man tries to keep the wife from performing such roles.

Lastly this would also cause unemployment for men who have been performing these roles because there would be increased man power on the market and most especially the manpower that is much more knowledgeable than men.

References

Creedon, P.J. (1993). The challenges of re-visioning Gender Values. In P.J .Creedon (ed.) Women in Mass communication (2nd ed). (pp.-23). California : Sage Publications lnc.


Interviews I had with some residents of Kalangala between 24-26 March 2006 during a study tour for Postgraduate Environmental Journalism and Communication students of Makerere University 2005/6.

Narayan , N. Chambers , R. Shan , M. K. Petesch , P. (2000) .Voices of the Poor Crying Out of Change. Washington: Oxford press.

Pieterse, J.N.(2002). Development Theory Deconstructions /Reconstructions.
Skelton T, and Allen T (2005).Culture and Global change an introduction. London: Sage Publications

Wikipedia encyclopedia at www.wikipedia.com accessed on 1st April 2006.

Wilkins, K .G. (2005). Out of focus: Gender visibilities in development. In O. Hemer and T. Tufte (ed). Media and Global Change Rethinking Communication for Development (PP.261-270) . Buenos Aires: Nordicon