The main goal of this special issue is to offer a room for interdisciplinary and engaged research in global environmental change (GEC), where gender plays a key role in building resilience and adaptation pathways. In this editorial paper, we explain the background setting, key questions and core approaches of gender and feminist research in vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to GEC. Highlighting the interlinkages between gender and GEC, we introduce the main contributions of the collection of 11 papers in this special issue. Nine empirical papers from around the globe allow to understand how gendered diversity in knowledge, institutions and everyday practices matters in producing barriers and options for achieving resilience and adaptive capacity in societies. Additionally, two papers contribute to the theoretical debate through a systematic review and an insight on the relevance of intersectional framings within GEC research and development programming.

The current trend in forest tenure reform promotes identity-based categories, such as indigenous people, on the assumption that this provides better access to forest resources for marginalized groups. India's historic Forest Rights Act of 2006 recognizes the traditional rights of the scheduled tribes and other forest-dependent people dwelling in and around forestlands. This paper examines the politics of individual and collective access to forestland and the political representation of Bhil tribal women in the semi-arid Banswara district, Rajasthan, India. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 54 informants, and two focus group discussions. A rights-based access approach was used to analyse outcomes of forest tenure reform on tribal women's access to forestland, and inclusion in, and/or exclusion from, collective decision making about forestland management. The findings indicate that the new identity-based forest tenure reform is mere tokenism and hinders rather than promotes tribal women's political empowerment and access to forest-based resources.

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