Population- Environment –

Gender Dimension

IIPS, Mumbai
• Is the goal merely to increase national
wealth, or is it something more subtle?
• Ensuring people’s basic needs?
• Increasing their economic security?

• United Nations Development Programme

development is
'to lead long and healthy lives,
to be knowledgeable,
to have access to the resources needed for a
decent standard of living and
to be able to participate in the life of the
community.'
 Eco feminism ( environmentalism + Feminism)

• Environmentalism-: a theory/proposition that views

environment as the important factor in the development and
especially the cultural and intellectual development of an
individual or group

• Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining,

establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and
social rights and equal opportunities for women.

• Eco-feminism is a joining of environmental, feminist, and

women's spirituality concerns. Women began to see a parallel
between the devaluation earth and the devaluation of women -
a strong unifying force that clarified the violation of women
and the earth as part of the same drama of male control.
1974 by Françoise d'Eaubonne
Accepted philosophy of Naess but said he ignored the dominance of male

Basic Tenants of eco-feminism:

There exits important connection between oppression of women and oppression of nature

In patriarchal though, women are closer to nature and men closer to culture. Nature is seen inferior to culture, so women are inferior to men.

As oppression of women and nature happened together , women have a chance to end the oppression of nature

Feminist and environmental movement are both stand for egalitarian system

• Nature deteriorated because-

▫ male ownership of land for patriarchy
▫ Land are valued only as a economic resource- grow food, export, overgraze- earn
profit from land.
▫ Monoculture, cash crop- intensification, pesticide use, removal of subsistence
farmers to the less productive land leading to deforestation, soil degradation and
further environmental damage.
▫ Rape the land, tame nature
 Vandana Shive:

a stream in a forest..
In our society it is considered as unproductive if it is simply there, fulfilling
the needs for water of women’s families and communities, until engineers
come along, damming it and using it for generating hydropower.

The same is true with forests until it is used commercially. A forest may very
well be productive, protecting groundwater, creating oxygen, allowing
women to harvest fruit, fuel, craft materials and creating a habitat for
animals that are also a valuable resource. However, for many it is not a
contribution to GDP.. Without a dollar value attached, it can not be seen as
productive resource.

people matter more than profits …. Only sustainable, biologically diverse farms that
are more resistant to disease, drought, and flood can both feed and safeguard the
world for generations to come.

Ref: Staying Alive: Women, ecology and Development, 1988

Soil not oil: 2008
 Women: closer to nature, less rational, passionate and emotional, soft and nurturing .Both
nature and women are ill- used.

• The connection between women and nature is based on

1. Biological character-
▫ Women's monthly fertility cycle- nature’s seasonal flowering
▫ Process of gestation- process of germination
▫ Birth of a child- seeding and birth of a sapling

2. Ideological: Indian Cosmological View:

 Nature= Prakiti=diversity, expression of shakti
( power), creative= women.
 Death of prakiti=death of feminine principle= marginalization,
devaluation, displacement, crisis

• 3. material link:
▫ Women are dependent on nature materially
▫ They have special knowledge of nature
Environmental degradation and women

1. In many Asian and African countries rural

people mainly women gather a variety of items
from village commons and forests:
▫ Fruits, fuel, fodder, fiber, timber, manure,
bamboo, medicinal herbs, oils, house building
materials, materials for handicrafts, rasin, gum,
honey and spices
▫ Forests and village commons supply 91 percent
firewood and 70 percent grazing land to poor
households in India.
Indian Context:

Availability of natural resources to poor/rural

community is eroded by

A. Degradation of quality and quantity of natural

resources

B. Increasing statization and privatatization of village

commons and forests

C. Population growth

D. Choice of technology
 • Degradation of quality and quantity of natural resources
in India
I. Forest area is declining at a rate of 1.3 million
hectare/year. However, recently, forst cover increased
marginally.
II. 60 % land area is suffering from
erosion/pollution/water logging ( eg green revolution)
III. Availability of ground and surface water is falling - due
to indiscriminate sinking of tube wells especially in
northern India which was having high water tables
IV. Arsenic contamination: Anthropogenic Sources: the arsenic derived from
the oxidation of arsenic-rich pyrite in the shallow aquifers as a result of
lowering of the water table due to over extraction of groundwater for
irrigation. A 2007 study found that over 137 million people in more than
70 countries are probably affected by arsenic poisoning of drinking water
• process of statization
Started with British Colonial Policy and maintained
after independence:

I. State monopoly over forest

II. Access to forests are granted under highly
restricted conditions (mainly to influential people)
III. Forest management system encouraged plantation
of commercially profitable species at the cost of
species used by local people
IV. Indiscriminate forest exploitation for agriculture,
tea coffee plantation, supplying construction
materials for bridges, ships, railways.
process of privatization
• Privatization of community resources to individuals /community having access to
a specific community_ exclusionary in nature

• Auctioning to private contractors for commercial exploitation

• Inequality in the distribution of water- deep tube wells are concentrated in the
areas of ‘rich class’. Fall in the water table has dried up many shallow tube wells
used by the poor.

https://blogs.worldbank.org/nasikiliza/telling-real-peoples-stories-about-forests-
and-livelihoods-in-africa

Population Growth

• Rapid population growth puts pressure on limited resources

• Poverty leads to env. Degradation-
▫ Not sending girls to school
▫ Higher mortality
▫ More hands to increase income
Choice of Agricultural technology

• Green revolution adopted techniques to increase

crop output.

▫ Objective was short run

▫ High environmental cost- water logging,
salinization, excessive chemical fertilizer
▫ Indigenous crop varieties replaced- pest attack
▫ Little attempt to maintain a balance in forest, field
and grazing land
▫ Marginalization of indigenous knowledge
MEIJI JAPAN- decisions were made by interaction
of farmer, village worker and scientist
 Effect on women:
On Time:
1. Women are main gatherers of fuel, fodder, water– depletion
of forest/common land= lengthening of working hours
2. Shortage of drinking water- caste conflict- long waiting time
3. Fodder collection lengthened:

• ‘When we were young, we used to go to the forest early in the morning without
eating anything. There we would eat plenty of berries and wild fruits ... Drink the
cold sweet [water] of the Banj [oak] roots. ... In a short while we would gather all
the fodder and firewood we needed, rest under the shade of some huge tree and
then go home. Now, with the going of the trees, everything else has gone too’.
On income
1. Decline in village commons and forests reduced income directly
2. Extra time needed for collection of forest products that reduces time
devoted for agriculture ( wheat, maize, mustard production in Nepal
falling)
3. As income declined, women try to collect extra fuel wood for earning 6
rs/day for 20 kg wood.

On Nutrition
4. Decline in village common= decline in food
5. Decline in fuel wood-less nutritious food
6. Tradeoff between fuel gathering and cooking- affects nutrition

On Health
7. Pollution of rivers and water bodies= women more exposed to waterborne diseases
8. Burden of family ill health more on women
9. Rice transplantation, cotton picking= arthritis, gynaecological ailments, DDT in
milk of nursing mother, limb and visual ailments.
On social support network:
1. Displacement= disruption of network
2. Social relationship with kin and villagers=reciprocal labour
sharing, loans, sharing of food stuffs, cultural binding.

On women’s indigenous knowledge

3. Women are close to the nature= they know well about the crop
varieties, art of gathering food and fodder form forest,
4. Modern knowledge gives little emphasis on indigenous
knowledge= gradual eclipse of women’s knowlegde.
State’s response:
• Tree plantation schemes

1. Women do not feature in such schemes

2. Community forestry schemes leading to
economic inequality
3. Commercial approach to forestry
Women’s response:
• Made active resistance to ecological destruction for years.

1. CHIPKO, Eppiko , Narmada valley project

2. They are in favour of long term gains- women prefer trees that
provide fuel , fodder daily needs

▫ Foresters: What do the forests bear?

Profits, resin and timber
▫ Women (Chorus): What do the forests bear?
Soil, water and pure air.
Soil, water and pure air,
Sustain the earth and all she bears

3. Active in protecting trees, stopping tree auctions, keeping vigil against

illegal felling
CHIPKO
• In the 1970s, an organized resistance to the destruction of forests
spread throughout India and came to be known as the Chipko
movement. The name of the movement comes from the word
'embrace', as the villagers hugged the trees, and prevented the
contractors' from felling them.

• Not many people know that over the last few centuries many
communities in India have helped save nature. One such is the
Bishnoi community of Rajasthan. The original ’Chipko movement’
was started around 260 years back in the early part of the 18th
century in Rajasthan by this community. A large group of them
from 84 villages led by a lady called Amrita Devi laid down their
lives in an effort to protect the trees from being felled on the orders
of the Maharaja (King) of Jodhpur. After this incident, the
maharaja gave a strong royal decree preventing the cutting of trees
in all Bishnoi villages.
• In the 20th century, it began in the hills where the
forests are the main source of livelihood, since
agricultural activities cannot be carried out easily.

• The Chipko movement of 1973 was one of the most

famous among these. The first Chipko action took place
spontaneously in April 1973 in the village of Mandal in
the upper Alakananda valley and over the next five
years spread to many districts of the Himalayas in Uttar
Pradesh. It was sparked off by the government's
decision to allot a plot of forest area in the Alaknanda
valley to a sports goods company. This angered the
villagers because their similar demand to use wood for
making agricultural tools had been earlier denied.
• With encouragement from a local NGO (non-
governmental organization), the women of the area,
under the leadership of an activist, Chandi Prasad Bhatt,
went into the forest and formed a circle around the trees
preventing the men from cutting them down.

• Mr Sunderlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian activist and

philosopher, whose appeal to Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then
Prime Minister of India, resulted in the green-felling ban.
Mr Bahuguna coined the Chipko slogan: 'ecology is
permanent economy'. Mr Chandi Prasad Bhatt, is another
leader of the Chipko movement. He encouraged the
development of local industries based on the conservation
and sustainable use of forest wealth for local benefit.
• The Chipko protests in Uttar Pradesh achieved a
major victory in 1980 with a 15-year ban on
green felling in the Himalayan forests of that
state by the order of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then
Prime Minister of India.
• Since then, the movement has spread to many
states in the country. In addition to the 15-year
ban in Uttar Pradesh, the movement has stopped
felling in the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas.
 APPIKO movement
• The Appiko (`to embrace`) movement, started on September 8,
1983 by fiery activist Pandurang Hegde who was inspired by
Sunderlal Bahugana’s Chipko movement in U.P., used the same
method of villagers hugging the trees to save them from being
felled by the State, which had no laws then against felling of
timber inside protected areas.

Appiko saved thousands of trees in the Sirsi belt and through

protective action from 1983 to 1990 in various Western Ghat
forests saved trees from being felled and was responsible for the
setting up of laws prohibiting timber felling in reserve forests in
Karnataka.
Narmada Banchao Andolon
• Narmada Bachao Andolan is the most powerful mass movement, started in
1985, against the construction of huge dam on the Narmada river.
Narmada is the India's largest west flowing river, which supports a large
variety of people with distinguished culture and tradition ranging from the
indigenous (tribal) people inhabited in the jungles here to the large number
of rural population. The proposed Sardar Sarovar Dam and Narmada Sagar
will displace more than 250,000 people. The big fight is over the
resettlement or the rehabilitation of these people. The two proposals are
already under construction, supported by US$550 million loan by the
world bank. There are plans to build over 3000 big and small dams along
the river
• https://www.kcet.org/shows/earth-focus/episod
es/women-and-the-changing-environment
• http://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/ph
oto/climatechange/en/index.html

• http://www.unwomen.org

• RESEACH PAPER INDIA- BINA AGARWAL