Empowering women facilitates conservation

The present scenario of global change caused by unprecedented habitat loss, species declines, climate warming, and pollution with culminating in an environmental crisis that needs to be addressed with innovative and radical solutions. At least some failures of conservation can be attributed to poor involvement of women. To improve the role of women in conservation, we need to better understand and target the reliance of women on natural capital, involve women more effectively in natural resource governance, and build the capacity of women in conservation science and its application. Understanding the role of gender in humans relationships with natural resources is one of the precursors to more sustainable management of the environment. Men and women may differ in their attitudes toward natural resources: for instance rural women near a Tiger Reserve in India tended to be more supportive of wildlife and forest conservation than men because they felt that the tiger (proxy for wildlife) had a right to live (Arjunan et al., 2006). In general, our understanding of gender differences in attitudes toward conservation, especially in tropical communities, is poor (Martino, 2008), and this can impede conservation outcomes. For example, a reforestation project in rural Kenya almost failed because women were not given the choice of species to be planted, the decision of which was controlled by men. Therefore the women were unwilling to spend the extra time to irrigate the seedlings resulting in a large scale mortality of seedlings (Anonymous, 2001). However, the second phase of this project was successful because seedlings of tree species preferred by women were planted. This example highlights that it is important to engage rural women in the decision-making processes in conservation projects. It has been suggested that rural people should be monetarily compensated for safeguarding biodiversity (du Toit et al., 2004). Because financial assets held by rural women are generally spent on food, medicine, and housing (Kristof and WuDunn, 2009), including women in conservation payments schemes may sustain livelihoods and result in reduced reliance on forests. Similarly, while designing comprehensive sustainable harvesting regimes, gender differences in resource-harvesting behavior must be carefully considered. Conservation initiatives can also achieve broader environmental goals by targeting women more effectively. Growing human populations threaten natural habitats. Investments in educating women and providing themwith job opportunities can delay childbearing (Kristof and WuDunn, 2009) or reduce the number of children. Thus success of conservation initiatives will undoubtedly be enhanced by parallel programs such as small business development through micro-financing, better access to healthcare services such as family planning, efficient and sustainable agricultural techniques, and literacy programs for women. Recognizing the impor-