This didn't make it through the ether initially. I think it will
spark some interest in MANY of you!
Stefanie
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
I would like to invite you to take part in a new discussion list on
gender and the environment just begun by IUCN-- The World Conservation
Union. Below please find some detailed information about this electronic
conference.
To subscribe to the list, just send a message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
with the following line in the body of the message:
subscribe iucn-gender <your name>
Do not include the angle brackets, <>, in your message.
Please feel free to pass on this message to anyone you think may be
interested in participating. We look forward to hearing from you!
Best regards,
Meghan Golay
Programme Assistant
Social Policy Group
IUCN Headquarters
fax: 41 22 999 0025
tel: 41 22 999 0279
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*********************************************************
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
This conference has been created for discussion of gender issues in
conservation. It will run from early to mid-October when it will
culminate in IUCN's World Conservation Congress, to be held in Montreal,
Canada.
Since the late 1980's IUCN has devoted considerable effort to developing
a comprehensive gender policy. This year, there will be an important
initiative aimed at integrating gender issues into the workshops at the
IUCN's triennial Congress and "mainstreaming" this policy. This
metaconference is meant to stimulate discussion on gender and
conservation before the Congress and feed information into the live
discussions to take place there. Discussion topics, therefore, will
follow the topics of the ten Congress workshops. These will include:
1. Sustainable Use (community based-management of
forests; artisanal fisheries; management of
wildlife for sustainable use; wildlife, trade and
traditional medicine)
2. Biodiversity (implementing national Biodiversity
Action Plans -- the Convention on Biodiversity)
3. Protected Area Management
4. Sharing Nature's Bounty (integrated coastal and
marine management; fisheries; conservation in arid
lands)
5. Implementing Strategies for Sustainability
(national conservation strategies; local
strategies; effective communication in
strategies; assessment of sustainability)
6. Involving People in Conservation (collaborative
management approaches; water and population
dynamics; poverty and the environment; ethics in
conservation biology)
7. Economics as a Tool for Conservation (consumption
patterns; incentives and dis-incentives for
conservation; structural adjustment)
8. Global Issues (trade and sustainable development;
environment and security)
9. The Canadian Experience (the circumpolar world;
protected areas; sustainable use in Canada)
10. Engaging Members and Partners (Indigenous Peoples
in conservation; lessons from the south;
sustainable development in Central America).
We are also interested in hearing about examples of situations in which
women's knowledge of or interaction with the environment has made an
important difference, or, on the other hand, situations where not
specifically including this information has yielded an inaccurate or
inappropriate outcome/conclusion. We would like to be able to provide
such concrete examples to some of the workshops in Montreal.
Discussion may follow any one of these ten lines at any time. Please be
sure to note, however, which topic or topics your remarks address.
In addition to starting discussion and gathering input around the
workshop lines, we are also looking for information and advice from
others so that our efforts to mainstream a gender policy for IUCN can be
as successful as possible. To that end, we want your best advice -
including information about what has worked well and also what has not
worked at all. You may wish to address the following questions:
A. Does your organization or institution have a gender
policy?
Is it considered in all aspects of the organization's
work,
i.e. programmes, study areas, etc?
B. Does your organization draw on external expertise with
respect to gender issues?
C. Do you feel you have adequate access to gender-related
resources?
D. Can you refer us to directories, organizations etc. that
would
make our task easier?
E. How well do you feel your organization has "normalized"
gender:
are there good numbers of women on staff?
do projects or programmes specifically include women?
do they consider their impact on women?
do they actively promote empowering women?
F. What (or who) was most helpful to your organization in
promoting this policy?
G. What made your efforts more difficult than they needed to
be?
H. What is your advice on overcoming the tendency to treat
women in isolation? For example, "women and firewood" is
useful as an illustration of why gender analysis is
important, but we would really like to raise the
discussion to issues of equity. What are your thoughts on
good ways to do this?
We would also like to know a little about who you are. Please include a
short note about yourself and/or your organization. When writing of your
institution's experience with adopting a gender policy, it would be
particularly useful for us to know about your institution's mandate, the
nature of its membership, its size, geographic location etc.
This list is unmoderated for the time being but will be facilitated by:
Miriam Wyman
Miriam's work focuses on public involvement in environmental
decision-making. Particular areas include sustainable development, waste
management, and women's involvement in environmental activity. She
coordinated the first Canadian conference on women and environment in
1990, was the women's sector representative on the Canadian delegation to
the Earth Summit, and helped the International Institute for Sustainable
Development (IISD) prepare an electronic resource guide, "Women and
Sustainable Development: Canadian Perspectives" which can be accessed at
URL http://iisd1.iisd.ca.
and Meghan Golay
Meghan is the focal point for gender issues within the IUCN Secretariat
Headquarters in Gland, Switzerland. Meghan represented IUCN HQ at the
Beijing Conference on Women and, working within the Social Policy Group,
has been supporting a process of developing a policy on gender for the
Union for the past year.
If it would be helpful, we would be very happy to provide you with
documents IUCN has or will produce on developing a gender policy (contact
Meghan Golay at [EMAIL PROTECTED]). We would also be happy to share with
all contributors to this discussion our report on the outcome of the
Congress.
If would like more information on IUCN or the World Conservation
Congress, visit IUCN's website (http://www.iucn.org/).
************************************
Stefanie S. Rixecker
Department of Resource Management
Lincoln University, Canterbury
Aotearoa New Zealand
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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