Why Women are the Key to Climate Change Mitigation

Why Women are the Key to Climate Change Mitigation

by | Sep 6, 2022 | Blog

In Ngada Regency, central Flores, thousands of people live in villages close to forest areas that are home to dense thickets of old bamboo. These towering green poles were not planted by the villagers, however, but by their ancestors.  Before their involvement in EBF’s Bamboo Village program, most women in Ngada Regency had never propagated a bamboo seedling, but now their perspectives and participation are seen as the key to climate change mitigation.

According to global advocate Women Deliver, the first steps toward sustainably tackling the climate crisis are to ensure that girls and women are recognized for their environmental solutions and have a seat at the decision-making table. Across the world, it is women who most often determine their family’s consumption of resources, and they also contribute significantly to agricultural production, land management and conservation. The UN has found that in rural regions where subsistence farming is common, women and girls are the primary providers of food, water and fuel.

Climate change directly impacts the availability of resources and makes tasks normally performed by women increasingly difficult. Combined with existing gender inequalities, it will come as no surprise that women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate change and comprise the majority of climate migrants.

Further, according to climate change policy analyst Nina Jeffs, women’s participation in addressing climate change generates more effective and equitable climate outcomes. “Research demonstrates that due to socially prescribed gender roles, women assess risk differently to men and typically prioritize the welfare of their families and communities in resource-management decisions,” she writes.

This disproportional impact and urgent need to recognize women’s contributions and solutions is the driving force behind the joint statement published by the Scottish Government and UN Women at COP26, calling for the role of women and girls to be advanced in addressing climate change. It is also why EBF is now taking a ‘gender mainstreaming’ approach to its Bamboo Villages.

Gender mainstreaming is a strategy to achieve the goal of gender equality. According to the UN, its aim is to ensure that gender perspectives and gender equality are central to all project and program activities — development, research, advocacy, dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation.

EBF incorporates gender mainstreaming through its Mama Bambu program, which provides space for women to be physically present in every decision making process regarding bamboo conservation and utilization in Ngada, while amplifying their views on the sustainable use of bamboo. Bamboo helps mitigate climate change in Indonesia in various ways, from carbon sequestration to environmental restoration.

Mama Bambu

Monica Tanuhandaru, EBF’s Executive Director, has said that she hopes the gender mainstreaming approach will be used by Indonesia’s provincial and central governments so its benefits can me multiplied. “The women in the Mama Bambu program build their knowledge of how to look after forests, restore the land, and plant bamboo. In the longterm, it should become a national strategic project that could make a huge contribution to the development of Indonesia, borne from the hands of women.”

Integrating Gender Issues in Agrarian Reform and Social Forestry

Integrating Gender Issues in Agrarian Reform and Social Forestry

by | Apr 18, 2022 | Blog

A webinar was held on 13 April 2022 to discuss strategies for integrating gender issues into agrarian reform and social forestry programs and policies.

This webinar aimed to identify problems and challenges in the implementation of agrarian reform and social forestry, obtain information and lessons learned from good practices in integrating GESI strategies in the implementation of agrarian reform and social forestry, and formulate strategies for accelerating the implementation of gender-responsive agrarian and social forestry reforms.

Yayasan Bambu Lestari took part in this webinar and shared good practice and strategies for integrating gender issues into its activities in East Nusa Tenggara.

A total of 48.8 million Indonesians live in forest areas. 10.2 million of them live below the poverty line and depend on forest resources for their lives. Agrarian conflicts and land disputes are issues that are often experienced by people living in or around forest areas.

There are at least two triggers for the agrarian conflict: the lack of precise laws and policies governing agrarian issues, both related to views on land, land status and ownership, land rights, as well as methods for obtaining land rights; and inaction and injustice in the process of resolving land disputes, which ultimately lead to conflict.

The government seeks to narrow the inequality of land tenure and ownership through the agrarian reform program, a national priority program to develop Indonesia from the margins and improve the quality of life of the people. There are three forms of agrarian reform:  asset legalization, land redistribution, and social forestry.

Agrarian reform is also the answer to strengthening the space for land management by women. Their involvement and role in the form of a management space will greatly help improve the community’s economy.

Equal participation is a form of gender justice in the development process, including through social forestry by taking into account the experiences, needs, and barriers experienced by men and women. Therefore, gender integration in agrarian reform and social forestry should be able to ensure equal participation and rights between women and other community members by considering the important role of women in realizing sustainable forest management.

“This requires working together and synergizing efforts to create a women-friendly and child-friendly Indonesia. We ask for your support on how to accelerate the integration of gender issues into the context of agrarian reform and social forestry,” said the Deputy for Gender Equality at the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection (PPPA), Lenny N. Rosalin, S.E., M.Sc., M.Fin.

Gender mainstreaming has been reflected in the general policies and technical operational policies of social forestry within the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, so that a greater role for women in social forestry is made possible in the regulations.

“Until now, about 1 million households have access to social forestry and 141,000, or 13% of them, are women. We hope that in the future the number can increase to 30 to 40 percent.” said the Director-General of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnerships of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Dr. Ir. Bambang Supriyanto.

Suggested steps to achieve gender equality and social inclusion in agrarian reform and social forestry policies and programs include:
1. Critically examining the substance of a series of policies and programs and their implementation to find out the position in the GESI mainstreaming stage
2. The position in that stage of empowering women, vulnerable groups and marginal people
3. Overcoming various sources of barriers to the participation of women, vulnerable and marginalized groups so that empowering participation can be realized
4. Create the basis for building more equal power relations
5. Encourage equal decision-making (control) processes.

Gender Equality and Social Forestry: our experience with Mama Bambu in NTT

At the end of 2020 the Environmental Bamboo Foundation implemented a bamboo nursery program that places women at the center. These women pioneers are known as Mama Bambu ( Bamboo Mamas).

We started with something very simple: bamboo. At first, we wanted to share our experiences about how to grow bamboo. At that time, women who wanted to learn about bamboo or grow bamboo seedlings became our first partners.

What started as simple turned out to be a leap of thought among Mama Bambu: if we plant bamboo, we take care of the environment, and if we plant bamboo, we will have a source of bamboo not only for our daily needs but it can be legacy for our next generation.

In 2021, 388 Mama Bambu managed to produce 2.5 million bamboo seedlings. This number of seedlings can be planted on an area of ​​72,000 hectares for both ecological purposes (restoration of critical land, conservation of water resources, prevention of landslides, carbon sequestration) and economic purposes (material resources for industry/bamboo crafts).

The success of this nursery program shows that women are able to take an active role at the forefront of environmental conservation efforts as well as participate in the adaptation and mitigation of climate change. Women must also be given a main role in the Social Forestry schemes.

The Mama Bambu experienced increased knowledge about environmental conservation, gained new skills in making bamboo seedlings and natural fiber polybags, and are able to use digital media to find and exchange information. We distributed smartphones and provided training on how to use them.

There was an increase in economic capacity and financial control among Mama Bambu, all of whom received an incentive of Rp.2500/seedling which is a source of additional income for families experiencing economic difficulties due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Typhoon Seroja. We facilitated the creation of individual bank accounts for each Mama Bambu so that they have direct access and control over the incentives they receive.

Increased knowledge and new sources of income gave each Mama Bambu the confidence to be actively involved in decision-making processes at the family and village levels. In various dialogues with government officials, including the District Head (Bupati) and Governor, each Mama Bambu was able to clearly describe what they had achieved.