Engendering social and environmental safeguards in REDD+: lessons from feminist and development research

Abstract

Drawing on feminist and development literature, this paper suggests several important lessons and considerations for building equitable approaches to REDD+. Specifically, we illustrate the conceptual and practical significance of women’s participation for achieving the goals of REDD+as well as the limits and opportunities for gendering participation in REDD+. We argue that the standing debates over how and in what context gender becomes instrumentalised, technicalised or institutionalised in development provide important cautionary tales for the implementation and reporting of REDD+safeguards. By doing so, this paper contributes to the growing literature on gender, development, natural resource management and REDD+.

Keywords:

• Gender and feminism
• environmental policy
• REDD+
• forest governance
• climate change

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their suggestions for improving the arguments presented here. We would also like to thank Shintia Dian Arwida, Alice Evans, Cynthia Maharani, and Anastasia Yang for their comments and feedback on earlier iterations. Any errors or omissions are solely our responsibility.

Notes

1. See, for example, Sandbrook et al., “Carbon, Forests,” 330; Visseren-Hamakers et al., “Trade-offs, Co-benefits and Safeguards.”

2. UNFCCC, The Cancun Agreements.

3. Ibid., 13.

4. Ibid., 26.

5. UNFCCC, Decision on Guidance on Systems, 16–19.

6. Menton et al., Further Guidance for REDD+, 1–12.

7. UN-REDD, “UN-REDD+Programme Guidance Note.”

8. Ibid., 38–39.

9. Ibid.

10. WEDO, From Research to Action.

11. Rey et al., A Guide, 13.

12. Ibid, 301–302.

13. Ibid., 12–14.

14. UN-REDD, The Business Case for Mainstreaming Gender.

15. Peach Brown, “Gender, Climate Change and REDD+,” 168.

16. Ibid, 167.

17. Larson et al., “The Role of Women in early REDD+,” 61.

18. Di Gregorio et al., “Equity and REDD+ in the Media,” 11; and Gurung and Billah Setyowati, Re-envisioning REDD.

19. Khadka et al., “Gender Equality Challenges to REDD+,” 200.

20.. Ibid., 205.

21. Ibid., 203.

22. Ibid., 205.

23. Westholm and Arora-Jonsson, “Defining Solutions, Finding Problems.”

24. Mai et al., “Gender Analysis in Forestry Research.”

25. See Jackson and Chattopadhyay, “Identities and Livelihoods” ; Gupte, “Participation in a Gendered Environment” ; Benjamin, “Women in Community Forestry” ; and Sunam and McCarthy, “Advancing Equity.”

26. Agarwal, “Participatory Exclusions,” 1624.

27. Agarwal, “Participatory Exclusions.”

28. Cornwall, “Whose Voices?,” 1327.

29. Ibid.

30. Mwangi et al., “Gender and Sustainable Forest Management,” 7.

31. Sun et al., “Is Gender an Important Factor?,” 206.

32. Agarwal, “Conceptualizing Environmental Collective Action” ; Agrawal et al., Decentralization and Environmental Conservation; and Coleman and Mwangi, “Women’s Participation in Forest Management.”

33. Agarwal, “Does Women’s Proportional Strength?”

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Acharya and Gentle, Improving the Effectiveness, 4.

38. Banana et al., Gender, Tenure and Community; and Mukasa et al., Gender and Forestry in Uganda.

39. Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere”; and Young, “Justice and the Politics of Difference.”

40. Coleman and Mwangi, “Women's Participation in Forest Management.”

41. Mohanty, “Institutional Dynamics.”

42. Ibid.

43. See Dahlerup, “Women in Scandinavian Politics” ; Lovenduski, “Women and Politics” ; Agarwal, “Conceptualising Environmental Collective Action” ; Agarwal, “The Power of Numbers” ; and Acharya and Gentle, Improving the Effectiveness.

44. Agarwal, “Does Women’s Proportional Strength?”

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.

48. Banana et al. Gender, Tenure and Community, 48.

49. Agarwal, “Does Women’s Proportional Strength?”

50. Acharya and Gentle, Improving the Effectiveness.

51. Sijapati “Gender, Institutions and Development.”

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.

54. Arora-Jonsson, “Gender, Development and Environmental Governance,” 21.

55. Arora-Jonsson, “Gender, Development and Environmental Governance,”207.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59. Jewitt, “Unequal Knowledges.”

60. Villamour et al., “Gender Influences Decisions.”

61. Agarwal, “Gender and Command over Property”; and Meinzen-Dick et al., “Gender, Property and Natural Resources.”

62. Arora-Jonsson, “Gender, Development and Environmental Governance” ; and Sijapati, “Gender, Institutions and Development”.

63. Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes”; Moore, A Passion for Difference, 1–7; and Moraga and Anzaldua, This Bridge called my Back, xliii–xlvii.

64. Reed, ‘Taking Stands”; and Nightingale, “The Nature of Gender.”

65. Banana et al., Gender, Tenure and Community.

66. Rai and Buchy, “Institutional Exclusion.”

67. Nightingale, “The Nature of Gender.”

68. Ibid.

69. Ibid.

70. See Gezon, “Marriage, Kin, and Compensation”.; Agarwal, “Gender and Land Rights Revisited”; Jackson, “Gender Analysis of Land”; and Jackson, “Resolving Risk?”

71. Elmhirst, “Introducing New Feminist Political Ecologies.”

72. Nightingale, “The Nature of Gender”; Nightingale, “Bounding Difference”; Mollett and Faria, “Messing with Gender”; Gabrielsson and Ramasar, “Agents of Change.”

73. Elmhirst, “Introducing New Feminist Political Ecologies.”

74. Rocheleau and Edmunds, “Women, Men and Trees,” 1368.

75. See Benería and Sen, “Class and Gender Inequalities” ; and Carney, “Converting the Wetlands.”

76. Agarwal “Does Women’s Proportional Strength?”; Mwangi et al., “Gender and Sustainable Forest Management,” 11–15.

77. United Nations, Gender Equality and Sustainable Development, 11.

78. Westholm and Arora-Jonsson, “Defining Solutions, Finding Problems.”

79. UN-REDD, The Business Case for Mainstreaming Gender.

80. Li, The Will to Improve 7–12.

81. Ibid.

82. The Will to Improve, 123–155.

83. See Larson et al., “The Role of Women in early REDD+.”

84. Westholm and Arora-Jonsson, “Defining Solutions, Finding Problems.”

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid.

87. Westholm and Arora-Jonsson, “Defining Solutions, Finding Problems” ; Larson et al., “The Role of Women in early REDD+.”

88. Westholm and Arora-Jonsson, “Defining Solutions, Finding Problems.”

89. Benería and Sen, “Class and Gender Inequalities.”

90. Westholm and Arora-Jonsson, “Defining Solutions, Finding Problems.”

91. Ibid.

92. See Arora-Jonsson, “Forty Years of Gender Research.”

93. Westholm and Arora-Jonsson, “Defining Solutions, Finding Problems.”

94. Mosse, “Is Good Policy Unimplementable?,” 663.

95. de Certeau, quoted in Mosse, “Is Good Policy Unimplementable?,” 654.

96. Li The Will to Improve, 192–229.

97. Ibid.

98. Cornwall, “Whose Voices?,” 1338; and Agarwal, Gender and Green Governance, 177.

99. Li, The Will to Improve, 270–283; and Arora-Jonsson, “Gender, Development and Environmental Governance,” 233.

100. See Carney, “Converting the Wetlands” ; and Agarwal, Gender and Green Governance.

101. Westholm and Arora-Jonsson, “Defining Solutions, Finding Problems.”

102. Nightingale, “Bounding Difference”; Mollett and Faria, “Messing with Gender”5; and Gabrielsson and Ramasar, “Agents of Change.”