Just now, the environmental NGO Friends of the Earth is bringing out a book with a provocative title: Why Women Will Save the Planet. It is a collection of articles and interviews from 29 leading environmentalists and feminists, meant as a “rallying call” to environmental campaigning groups to no longer neglect women’s empowerment in their work. Friends of the Earth says, the book shall encourage the environmental and women’s movement to join forces, “because social justice and environmental sustainability are two sides of the same coin”.
The book comes out two weeks before the 2015 Global Landscapes Forum on 5-6 December, the biggest event on the sidelines of the UNFCCC COP21 in Paris. One of the authors, Kenyan activist Wanjira Mathai of the Green Belt Movement, will be a speaker at the GLF. In the book she writes about women as drivers of forest restoration to combat climate change. At the Global Landscapes Forum, she joins leading African politicians in presenting a program to restore 100 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes in Africa by 2030.
The book could also be an inspiration for the high-level discussion forum
This Land is Our Land: Gender perspectives on tenure and rights, organized by the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The organizers want to look at the practical requirements for restoring lands while taking into consideration the roles men and women play in rural development and “demystify” gender issues and do away with “zombie statistics“.
Other autors include CIFOR scientist Esther Mwangi (on Gender, participation and community forestry: lessons from beneath the canopy), Indian activist Vandana Shiva (on Hand in hand: women’s empowerment and sustainability) and former Oxfam CEO Barbara Stocking (on Putting gender equality at the heart of Oxfam’s work).
