• Gender and NRM

Gender and NRM

This paper examines the roles of women in natural resource conservation in Kenya, identifying the major research gaps. The author argues that conservation efforts will only succeed if government and non-governmental conservation bodies target rural women.

The paper argues that gender roles in Kenya put women in direct contact with natural resources such as forests, water, land and wildlife, and that women utilize and conserve these resources to supply basic needs for their families. The paper argues, that therefore conservation of natural resources in rural areas cannot be done without the involvement and training of women, and that women need to be educated on the values, management and sustainability of natural resources as alternative sources of livelihood. But to have success, the author argues that they must not only be appreciated as invisible land managers, but must benefit from relevant incentives in their cultural roles.

The author makes a number of research recommendations, including:

• to quantify and evaluate the role of rural women in socio-economic activities in homes and rural development
• to quantify and evaluate the impacts of women’s socio-economic activities on natural resources (land, water, wetlands, forests and wildlife) and how this can be ameliorated
• to quantify the degree of success in the way women run families and rural development and their potential contribution in changing and influencing rural socio-economic progress, especially conservation of land and natural resources
• to quantify what resources are used, for what purposes, the rate of resource use, the rate of renewal of the resources, the exploiting rural population, and the projections of stability and dynamics of resource use.

[adapted from author]

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend