Gender representation on Canadian forest sector advisory committees

Abstract

managers have introduced new processes and legal requirements to incorporate public interest and values in the management of Crown lands. The advisory or citizen committee has become a key tool among these. According to Parkins et al. (2006) "these initiatives and legislative requirements indicate a shift toward place-based public participation in the management of Canada's public forests." 3 This shift is not unique to forestry. In all aspects of environmental management, a shift from sector-based to placebased or community-based approaches to public involvement is evident. 4 This shift has raised many questions such as when and how to solicit public input, how much responsibility should be shared between local people and governing agencies, what degree of involvement is desirable and feasible, who should participate, how to stimulate local capacity to ABSTRACTThis paper presents a gender-based analysis of a national survey of 102 Canadian forest sector advisory committees. We consider both nominal and effective participation of participants and pay particular attention to how participants gained access to committees, what values they held, and what kinds of experiences they reported. Our analysis revealed that women comprise less than 20 percent of the membership of advisory committees, they hold significantly different values, and they rate their experiences less favourably than men. Consequently, exclusion of women has likely reinforced a timber extraction bias and has restricted women's contributions to advancing the aims of sustainable forestry.Key words: forest sector advisory committees, gender, public participation, forestry RÉSUMÉ Cet article présente une analyse en fonction du sexe d'un sondage national de 102 comités consultatifs du secteur forestier canadien. Nous avons étudié à la fois les nominations et la participation des représentants et nous nous sommes attardés en particulier à l'accession des participants au sein des comités, quelles valeurs ils défendaient et quels exemples d'expé-rience ils faisaient état. Notre analyse a démontré que les femmes comptent pour moins de 20 % des membres des comités consultatifs; qu'elles défendent des valeurs significativement différentes et que leur niveau d'expérience est inférieur à celui des leurs collègues masculins. En conséquence, l'exclusion des femmes a vraisemblablement renforcé le biais de l'extraction de la matière ligneuse et a réduit les contributions des femmes en matière de progrès des objectifs de la foresterie durable.

Social learning by whom? Assessing gendered opportunities for participation and social learning in collaborative forest governance

“…Instead, as HPCF became more driven to gain higher profits, more women gravitated toward the society where activities focused on forest and watershed protection, ecosystem-based forest development, employment, research, and public education. This self-selection resulted in both social and spatial segregation and reproduced gender norms around resource extraction and environmental protection that have been long-standing in Canada (Reed and Varghese 2007). In summary, although social learning was occurring at HPCF and KICODA, opportunities and outcomes were not evenly shared.…”

“…In both postindustrial and developing countries, researchers have demonstrated that participation in forestry decision making has been characterized by a gender order that privileges men's contributions to forestry (Reed 2010b), constrains women's participation in forestry management (Agarwal 2010, and ultimately contradicts the inclusive intentions of collaborative forest governance (e.g., Reed and Varghese 2007, Coulibaly-Lingani et al 2011, McDougal et al 2013a). Hence, we highlight gender as a central axis of social differentiation.…”

Gender as contradiction: From dichotomies to diversity in natural resource extraction

“…Data on women in the primary sector are notoriously poor and rarely give insight into the wage and skill levels of women's employment (Reed, 2003a;Mills, 2006). Studies on women's perceptions of, and involvement in, resource management in Northern contexts are even less forthcoming (for exceptions, see Davidson and Black, 2001;Reed and Varghese, 2007). Moreover, Reed and Christie further point out that 'while gender remains one of the key axes of inequality scrutinized by environmental scholars of the Third World, researchers focused on problems in First World settings continue to omit gender (e.g.…”

Gender, Critical Mass, and Natural Resource Co-Management in the Yukon

“…1 Ensuring that a broad range of needs and values are included in their processes is central to that goal (Agarwal 2010a). However, the engagement of communities in natural resource management does not inherently address inequalities based on gender and other forms of social diff erence (Reed and Varghese 2007). More broadly, the gender composition of public bodies can infl uence how they function and the decisions they make.…”

“…These are based on the diff erent roles, responsibilities, and experiences that men and women have within the community in relation to the natural environment (Mikkelsen 2005;Varghese and Reed 2012). For example, Reed and Varghese (2007) show that men are more likely to associate the environment with utilitarian values, whereas women convey stronger support for its intrinsic value. This does not imply that women's perspectives on the environment are homogenous; rather, that gender is one of many social structures that interact to infl uence the perspectives expressed within resource management.…”