Women and Plants: Gender Relations in Biodiversity Management and Conservation

by Patricia L Howard (Editor)

Overview

This unique collection of in-depth case studies from Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America demonstrates the importance of women and gender relations in plant genetic resource management and conservation. It provides a state-of-the-art overview of the concepts, relationships and contexts explaining the relatively hidden gender dimensions of people-plant relations.

The contributors come from a rich range of disciplines including ethnobotany, geography, agronomy, anthropology, plant breeding, nutrition and development economics. They demonstrate how crucial women are to plant biodiversity management and conservation at household, village, and community levels; and how gender relations have a strong influence on the ways in which local people understand, manage, and conserve biodiversity. Continued access to biological resources is crucial to rural women's status and welfare, and their motivations therefore are a principal driving force countering processes of biological erosion.

The contributors highlight the gender biases evident in much contemporary scientific research, policy and development practice. And they seek to contribute to a number of important debates, including the determinants of genetic erosion, the significance of gender in indigenous ethno-botanical knowledge systems, indigenous intellectual property rights systems and women's entitlements therein, and ecofeminist and other debates about the nature of gender-environment relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781842771570
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/01/2003
Series:	Deutsche Gesellschaft Fur Technische Zusammenarbei
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.68(d)

About the Author

Professor Patricia Howard-Borjas is an American Research Professor in Gender Studies in Agriculture and Rural Development at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She was Training and Project Officer at the Women in Agricultural Production Service, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN in Rome from 1990 to 1995.
Professor Patricia Howard-Borjas is an American Research Professor in Gender Studies in Agriculture and Rural Development at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She was Training and Project Officer at the Women in Agricultural Production Service, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN in Rome from 1990 to 1995.

Table of Contents

Foreword
1. Women and the Plant World: An Exploration - Patricia L. Howard

Part 1: Culture, Kitchen and Conservation
2. Women in the Garden and Kitchen: The Role of Cuisine in the Conservation of Traditional House Lot Crops among Yucatec Mayan Immigrants - Laurie S. Z. Greenberg
3. Wild Food Plants and Arbëresh Women in Lucania, Southern Italy - Andrea Pieroni
4. Women and ‘Wild’ Foods: Nutrition and Household Food Security Among Rai and Sherpa Forager Farmers in Eastern Nepal - Ephrosine Daniggelis

Part 2: Gender Relations, Women's Rights, and Plant Management
5. Farm Women's Rights and Roles in Wild Plant Food Gathering and Management in Northeast Thailand - Lisa Leimar Price
6. Gender and Entitlements in the Zimbabwean Woodlands: A Case Study of Resettlement - Allison Goebel

Part 3: Gendered Plant Knowledge in Science and Society
7. 'Passing on the News': Women's Work, Traditional Knowledge and Plant Resource Management in Indigenous Societies of Northwestern North America - Nancy Turner
8. The Invisible Queen in the Plant Kingdom: Gender Perspectives in Medical Ethnobotany - Brij Kothari
9. The Gender of Crops in the Papua New Guinea Highlands - Paul Sillitoe

Part 4: Plants, Women's Status and Welfare
10. Gendering the Tradition of Plant Gathering in Central Anatolia (Turkey) - Füsun Ertug
11. The Basket-Makers of the Central California Interior - Linda Dick Bissonnette
12. Exchange, Patriarchy and Status: Women's Homegardens in Bangladesh - Margot Wilson

Part 5: Gender, Biodiversity Loss and Conservation
13. Losing Ground: Gender Relations, Commerical Horticulture and Threats to Local Plant Diversity in Rural Mali - Stephen Wooten
14. Modernization and Gender Dynamics in the Loss of Agrobiodiversity in Swaziland's Food System - Millicent Malaza
15. Arawakan Women and the Erosion of Traditional Food Production in Amazonas Venezuela - Shirley Hoffmann
16. Women and Maize Breeding: The Development of New Seed Systems in a Marginal Area of Southwest China - Yiching Song and Janice Jiggins

Editorial Reviews

Wonderfully rich in evidence, persuasive in its argument, and wide-ranging in coverage, this timely edited volume on the gendered nature of knowledge about biodiversity enriches both scholarship and policy. It points to the critical need not only of recognizing the specificity of womens knowledge about plant species, but of strengthening their conservation efforts and bringing their interests to bear in arrangements for biodiversity development and benefit sharing.” —Bina Agarwal, Professor of Economics, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University

“Focusing on traditional knowledge of indigenous people and local communities, and especially on the relationship between biodiversity and women in traditional societies worldwide, this book provides a well-marked path for the better understanding of biodiversity, its values and its importance for humans while at the same time highlighting community and ecosystem inter-relations.” —Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary to the Convention on Biodiversity

“This is a very important book. Taken together, the collected papers present a rich picture of the vital role played by peasant women around the world. They are struggling to preserve, in the face of modern agribusiness, the agricultural wisdom of the past and the diversity of plants that have been used for both food and medicine. It is vital that decision makers, especially in the developing world, heed the knowledge of these women who understand so well the art of a sustainable lifestyle. Women and Plants must be in the library of every individual who cares about the future of our planet.” —Jane Goodall

“At long last, the predominant role of women in the management of plant genetic resources has begun to be scientifically documented in this highly important book. While men were occupied by hunting and defending their territories, women were most likely domesticating many of the world's crops. Recognition that they hold much of the related knowledge and skills today is clearly overdue. But recognition is not enough - Farmer's Rights as per Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture must be assured now and for the future, if we are to give farmers - both women and men - incentives to continue to be the developers and custodians of the world's genetic resources. All those with responsibilities for promoting the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources should certainly read this book.” —Jose Esquinas Alcazar, Secretary of the Commission on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization, and Father of 'Farmers' Rights'

“Women and Plants offers a uniquely gender-sensitive perspective on the management of biodiversity. These case studies empirically substantiate a broad range of cultures and ecologies, and offer keen insights for policy development and application.” —Professor Nina L. Etkin, Associate Editor, Pharmaceutical Biology

From the Publisher