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Purpose of the checklist
Why is gender important in agriculture projects?
How to use the checklist
Gender analysis framework for agriculture
Gender analysis for subsectors
Gender issues in irrigation
Gender issues in fisheries
>> Gender issues in forestry and watershed management
Gender issues in coastal zone management
Gender issues in integrated rural development
Gender issues in microfinance
Gender issues in industrial crops and agro-industry
Gender issues in livestock
Gender Checklist: Agriculture : Gender analysis for subsectors

Gender issues in forestry and watershed management

  1. In the project area, is there a gender division of labor and responsibilities in forestry use and related activities? The following should be considered:
    • gathering forest products for domestic/household use;
    • gathering fuelwood;
    • gathering forest materials for use for craft or commercial products;
    • planting, protecting, or caring for seedlings and small trees;
    • planting and maintaining homestead wood lots and plantations on public or government lands;
    • attitudes and knowledge with respect to forest and tree use;
    • destructive practices with respect to forest, soil, and tree use;
    • income-earning and employment opportunities in general; and
    • varieties of trees used or preferred by each gender group.
  2. Will the project affect the level of women’s involvement in these activities?
  3. What are the time, financial, and social constraints on the participation of women in project forestry activities? Do these vary at different times of the year?
  4. Is female labor included in the increased demand for paid labor (transplanters, weeders, nursery owners and workers, etc.)?
  5. Will the project impose an extra burden on women’s workday or patterns of work? Will this benefit or disadvantage women?
  6. Do women in the project area control the marketing of their products and hence retain control over those products?
  7. What is the nature of ownership of the forest? Is it government forest? Community forest? Homestead forest? Forest on government-leased land and owned by a particular community? Forest on land owned by indigenous people?
  8. Who owns the land on which the community forest or the homestead forest stands, and who owns access to government-leased forest land? Are men or women or both the owners? Do women or men or both own the indigenous people’s forest or does the whole tribe/community own it?
  9. What is the traditional pattern of ownership of forest land by women and men?
  10. Are there any social constraints on women collecting and use forest products?
  11. Does ownership determine access to, collection, use, and benefits from forest products?
  12. Do women work on tree plantations on public land or community land as wage workers or do they have access to lease rights to the plantation?
  13. Will the project affect women’s and men’s traditional right to collect and use forest products?
  14. Will the project change indigenous women’s and men’s rights to forest use?
  15. Will the project introduce new plantation and reforestation work? If so, how will the project activities affect:
    • women’s and men’s traditional source of incomes?
    • employment opportunities?
    • lease of government land for reforestation or new plantation?
    • access to community forests and development of homestead forests?

Key Strategies

  1. Ensure that women’s traditional right to forest use is not diminished. Ensure that any increase in the efficiency of access to forests and of forest product use by women and men is not achieved at the expense of women’s access to and control over forest products.
  2. Ensure equal access to project resources for women and men for community, government, and homestead forests.
  3. Include measures to avoid potential conflicts among competing users or uses, and avoid creating negative effects for forest users.
  4. Ensure the cooperation of both men and women in tree planting and tree care in social/community forestry projects.
  5. Reflect women’s preferences for particular tree species in project activities.
  6. Train women in required components, such as nursery techniques, site selection, selection of species, land preparation, planting, weeding, and maintenance, to increase their productivity.
  7. Look for ways in which the above inputs and new technologies can be channeled effectively to reach women.
  8. Train female forestry extension agents in the project. Sensitize forestry extension agents to women’s forest use patterns and particular needs and constraints.
  9. Help women as well as men understand the value of forests, and instill proper attitudes toward destructive forest resource extraction, the sustainable use of forest resources, soil erosion, and choice of trees.
  10. á Include measures to provide women or women’s groups with access to the lease of government land and to roadside forestry for new plantation and reforestation work.
  11. Introduce measures that will provide joint title for women and men for community forest land.
  12. Ensure the right to forest resource use for indigenous women and men.
  13. Make use of women’s traditional knowledge of forest resource management, choice of trees for social forestry projects, and homestead forests.
  14. Ensure support for women’s craft and home-based forest-related industry through credit utilization, business management, and marketing.
  15. If community groups or forest resource management committees are formed under this project, ensure that women are included in the community group or forest resource management committee.

The case study in box 7 describes gender issues and their management in the Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project in Bangladesh.

Box 7 : Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project in Bangladesh

The Sundarbans Reserve Forest (SRF), comprising 6,000 sq km, is the world’s largest remaining contiguous mangrove area. A globally significant ecosystem, SRF features habitats for fish, shrimp, birds, and other wildlife including the Royal Bengal tiger. The SRF also offers subsistence for 3.5 million people in the 17 subdistricts of the impact zone, within a 20-km radius beyond the SRF border. The forest is part of the lives of people in the impact zone, but traditional user practices and seasonality of harvesting have largely broken down. The SRF is increasingly being used by commercial wood processors, rural communities, fisher folk, and fishing vessels from the Bay of Bengal. Under pressure from the growing number of users and the unsustainable harvesting of forest products and fishery resources, forest and biological resources are being depleted.

The gathering of firewood and the processing of forest products extracted from the SRF have traditionally been carried out by women from the surrounding rural communities. With increasing poverty in the impact zone, women are now also involved in fishing and crab collection. The rise of the shrimp industry and growing demand have led women to join in the collection of shrimp fry, disrupting the education of girls and exposing them to health hazards, violence, and harassment from illegal elements. Because the society and the forest officials do not recognize women’s role as minor forest product collectors, women’s needs are only marginally considered in forest management policies.

Women who fish and collect shrimp fry are generally from the poor households. To acquire boats, fishnets, and their other needs, they resort to borrowing from private moneylenders and shrimp fry traders at exorbitant interest rates. Women also suffer from lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation and health services, and from greater vulnerability to diseases.

The Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project is aimed at developing a sustainable management and biodiversity conservation system for SRF resources on the basis of rational plans and the participation of all key stakeholders. A major objective of the project is to reduce poverty among the 3.5 million people living in the impact zone through community-based organizations of SRF resource users, greater economic opportunities, alternative employment creation, and improved social infrastructure. The community development component of the project, with the participation of a gender consultant, is designed particularly to address the needs of women resource users living in the impact zone. Half of the project beneficiaries are poor women, and the project is giving priority to households headed by poor women.

The project is mobilizing and organizing groups of women SRF resource users into viable users’ organizations to give them a collective and legally recognized voice in planning SRF resource management and their own activities in the impact zone, as well as in dealing with violence against women. Through collective organization, women forest resource users will be able to establish their rights and entitlement to SRF resources and common property resources in the impact zone. The training program is focused on the sustainable harvest of fishery resources, conservation awareness, and management of SRF resources.

The credit program under the project is designed to create alternative employment opportunities for women’s groups such as charcoal making, seedling plantation, and reforestation, to reduce women’s dependence on SRF products and shrimp fry. The microcredit program is also intended to lessen their dependence on private moneylenders and to increase their incomes. The enrollment of girl children in school is thus also expected to increase.

Women resource users will receive leadership training. Women representatives will participate in the Stakeholders Advisory Council (SAC), where they can raise issues that affect women user groups and have the opportunity to work together with the Sundarbans Management Unit (SMU) in drawing up policies for integrated natural resource management.

Social infrastructure such as drinking water facilities, toilets, and community schools in the impact zone will be planned in consultation with women resource user groups. Women’s participation in the planning of social infrastructure recognizes their ability to decide on community public works and gives them a sense of ownership in social infrastructure. Moreover, the social infrastructure will improve the lives of the women and the opportunities for their children’s education.

Through access to capital, higher incomes, training, and collective organization, women will eventually have a greater voice in the family and a more visible role in the management of SRF resources.


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