Gender and equity are crucial to the success of community forest management, allowing women, and other marginalized groups, to participate effectively in processes of good governance in forests. A soon-to-be-published book* edited by CIFOR researcher Carol Colfer describes the important role that gender and equity play in effective community and forest management, but also highlights the wide differences to be found across the world.

As experience in Bolivia shows, bringing pre-conceived ideas about gender to the forests can be quite problematic. Communities in Salvatierra in eastern Bolivia have been developing a forest management project within a system of communal land rights with the assistance of the Bolivian Sustainable Forestry Project since 2001. The project requires large-scale collective action over extended periods. Adding timber management to a swidden agriculture system meant that residents needed to change their behaviour to meet their subsistence needs to free up labour for the new activities.

In Salvatierra's households, although there is a distinct division of labour, both men and women work in the fields. Men clear forest for swidden fields, and hunt and travel to market. Women gather firewood, fetch water and take care of most domestic chores.

"We realized that for most foresters, resistance was not based on male chauvinism," said Peter Cronkleton, an anthropologist and CIFOR's project facilitator in Bolivia. "Many simply did not think forestry was a relevant topic to discuss with women."

Project planners had assumed forest management was not a traditional activity for women because they could not do the heavy work involved in logging. In fact, women were just as capable as men at learning to measure and tag trees, record data and monitor harvested timber volumes - tasks that required skill and not brute force.

Involving the women in the work meant they could earn their share of the benefits from the project. "If a project does not provide equitable benefits, or is perceived to treat some segments of the population unfairly, opposition to the project could develop," Cronkleton said. "Including women is not only a question of equity. It is crucial for project stability and for promoting local control." In fact, once the women were included, they had a positive influence on the project, improving social control and decision-making.

Bringing women into a community forest project was also a problem in Bamdibhirkhoria, Nepal. Decision making is an important function in forest user groups and requires the participation of the whole community. But, in practice, disadvantaged groups are frequently marginalized in Nepal. Women must work in the home and poor people must work for wages. "These obligations interfered with their ability to attend meetings, and so they were less aware of the decisions being made," said Sushma Dangol, a facilitator in Nepal. "And women's voices in such decision-making fora were often ignored, further inhibiting their willingness to speak out." The women, marginalized castes and poor people also had little time for training, workshops and study tours. They were too busy in the home gardens, collecting forest products, and in some cases working on other development projects in agriculture, health and education.

Project workers made extra efforts to involve these groups so that they are routinely involved in planning, decision making and all other forest-related activities. There is also greater recognition among the traditional elite about the importance of involving them in meetings and community activities, so as to improve their well-being and strengthen sustainable forest management. In matters of benefit sharing, however, there remains a lot to be done.

An even greater gender problem faced community projects in Zimbabwe - the attitude of the women themselves. In the Shona society in Mafungautsi, women wield a significant amount of informal power. Although men might hold important public roles and women defer to them, in many cases they exert relatively little power. Bevlyne Sithole, a CIFOR consultant at the time of this research and now co-leader of CIFOR's Program Development Unit, found that women derive their power from extensive private networks and from their roles as wives, witches, mistresses and politicians. Women were unwilling and uncomfortable participating in committees. They remained silent to maintain the illusion of male dominance. "Even within women-only groups, we saw a trend to coopt men to maintain this status quo and the illusion of male dominance in public decision-making structures," Sithole said.

The unwillingness or reluctance of women to "become men in a dress" meant that Western notions of inclusive democracy just did not apply in certain social settings. "We are rethinking gender advocacy to focus on ways of involving women in decision making that are more acceptable to them," Sithole said.

"People have known for a long time that gender involved a lot of inequities in terms of involvement in decision making and access to resources," Colfer said. "The research highlighted here represents a sprinkling of the results from our studies of adaptive collaborative management in 30 sites. In The Equitable Forest, the authors look at gender and diversity issues specifically related to management of forests by communities, and provide insights into what does work in different contexts."

Ultimately, economic, social and environmental issues must be balanced, with bottom-up as well as top-down perspectives. "These studies give practical guidance, based on their efforts to protect the livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable groups such as women, while mobilizing their creativity and human resources for the betterment of local environments and communities," concludes Colfer. PS

*The Equitable Forest, edited by Carol J. Pierce Colfer, and published by Resources for the Future and the Center for International Forestry Research, Washington, D.C. - due for publication, June 2004.