Biodiversity and forest
Global climate change is causing a drastic reduction in our planet's biodiversity. Rainforest deforestation has a particularly direct effect on people living in the immediate surroundings.
Key role in the sustainable use of forests and nature:
- Due to traditional roles and gender differences in access to and control over land, women and girls in many parts of the world are being particularly affected. As householders, they are heavily dependent on the natural resources of their immediate environment, whether for water supply, wood for fires or as domestic working materials, or accessing plants for food and medicine.
- With dwindling natural and forest resources, access to important materials is becoming increasingly scarce and the associated costs ever greater.
- It is precisely because of such gender-specific differences that women have a key role in sustainably using and conserving forests and the natural surroundings. To protect the earth's biodiversity, it is therefore vital to not only involve local and indigenous communities – i.e. local people in direct contact with nature and forests – in climate policy, but also to promote gender equality.
- Female land owners
- Male land owners
For example, only 13.8 per cent of all landowners worldwide are women, even though they make up the majority of those employed in agriculture, forestry and fisheries. x
Indigenous peoples make up less than five percent of the world's population, but protect 80 per cent of global biodiversity. x Indigenous women, whose traditional livelihoods depend on these resources, are special in possessing the knowledge to effectively preserve biodiversity. Giving indigenous people access to land and resources and enabling their participation in decision-making processes is the key, especially for women, to protecting the ways in which they contribute to sustainable land use and management as solutions to climate protection and sustainable development. Projects integrating these factors are therefore not only more effective and balanced, but they also strengthen social education in the communities.
Footnotes
- Source: UN Women (2019): Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals – The Gender Snapshot, S. 18.
- Source: BMZ Factsheet, Link: http://www.bmz.de/de/zentrales_downloadarchiv/themen_und_schwerpunkte/klimaschutz/01_factsheets/BMZ_Indigene_Klimaschutz_de.pdf