Landscape restoration and women's empowerment, a proposal towards gender equality

• The 20x20 Initiative's 'A Decade for Landscape Restoration and Women's Empowerment' webinar outlined current challenges to building more equitable ecosystem restoration initiatives between women and men.

September 10, 2021. The gender inequality present in the right of access to land and natural resources; the limited representation of women in decision-making spaces and unpaid care work, were the central themes of the webinar 'A decade for landscape restoration and women's empowerment' as part of the barriers to break down towards the construction of more equitable initiatives between women and men in ecosystem restoration issues.

According to the different participants, the majority of women in Latin America are not subject to land tenure rights and land security. In fact, women are the most affected when it comes to accessing natural resources such as water, even though they are mainly responsible for feeding and caring for their families, collecting drinking water and household energy; tasks that have been made precarious.

The structural segmentation of work roles and the invisibilization of the work performed by women generates an overload and unequal distribution of work in the field, which also prevents different women from participating in decision-making spaces for the development of restoration initiatives with a gender perspective, which really meet the needs of rural women, not only in terms of gender, but also in terms of ethnicity, social class, age, among others.

Pamela Castillo, leader of the Technical Secretariat of the Gender and Parity Initiative in Costa Rica, explained the urgent need to build a new agenda where biodiversity and human rights are at the forefront of restoration actions, which will allow women to have access to land, financing, education and the opportunity to be leaders in decision-making spaces; not only to offer these scopes, but also to create affirmative actions that really allow these proposals to be implemented and accompanied.

As part of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), these opportunities are presented to develop strategies that increase the participation of women in the implementation of restoration projects, as well as to offer a perspective on the importance of generating public policies and legislation that provide economic, social and environmental justice in Latin America and the Caribbean, for which a synergy between organizations, development banks, institutions, companies and civil society is necessary.

The webinar was held through the 20x20 Initiative and the Latin American Model Forest Network (RLABM, its Spanish acronym) on September 8th, with the participation of different women from around Latin America, including: Luciana Gallardo Lomeli, Associate Researcher, WRI; Marta Marulanda Angel from the Technological University of Pereira, Colombia; Rosa Lemos from the Brazilian Fund for Biodiversity (FUNBIO); Iliana Monterroso, environmental scientist from the Center for Forest Restoration (CIFOR); María Inés Miranda, Founder Fair Connection and Wise Women Network, Chile and Natalia Ruiz-Guevara,Monitoring and Evaluation of the Andean Forests Program, Helvetas, Peru.

If you wish to see the complete webinar presentation, you can access the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny_h21w5e90

The 20x20 Initiative is a country-led effort to restore 50 million hectares by 2030 in Latin America and the Caribbean. The initiative supports reforestation with native plants, conservation, agro-forestry, and silvo-pastures among other activities. The initiative also supports efforts to increase soil carbon, water balance, biodiversity enhancement, wetland restoration and natural pastures.

Written by:

Dannia Gamboa Solís
Communications Assistant
Information Technology and Communication
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