Public Lecture on Governing South Asia’s Forests at NMML
The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) invites all interested to a Public Lecture on the topic ‘Governing South Asia’s Forests: Does women’s presence make a difference?’ as part of the ‘Science, Society and Nature’ Series. The Lecture will be delivered by Prof. Bina Agarwal of the University of Manchester, UK and Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi.
Date: 5 February, 2014 (Wednesday)
Time: 3.00 pm
Venue: Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building, NMML, New Delhi
Abstract: Forests in South Asia are largely state owned but a fair proportion are community governed. Women’s presence, however, has been sparse in community institutions involved in such governance, and most research on gender and forest governance has focused on women’s absence. This presentation reverses that focus to ask: what if women were present in these institutions? Would that affect the decisions made and conservation outcomes? These questions remain largely unaddressed, despite the substantial work on women’s representation in public bodies and on local environmental governance. Exploring the history of women’s absence, the speaker will then focus on the impact of their presence, using her primary data on communities managing local forests in India and Nepal to provide some answers.
Image by D. Heenpelia via Flickr over Creative Commons
