Empowering Women through Natural and Social Resource Management

Abstract

For people who live in fragile eco-regions such as forests, hills, arid and semi-arid plains, agriculture and animal husbandry are the main sources of income. Besides, they depend heavily on natural resources for their survival. For example, they collect fire wood for cooking, fodder for cattle feed, roots, tubers and wild fruits for human consumption. In addition to this collection and selling of bamboo, gum, mahau flowers, tamarind, honey, beedy leaves, palm leaves, sal leaves, blackjamoons, spices, broom sticks and herbs forms an important source of income to these people. In all these, women play a central role. Gathering, processing and storing, utilization and management and marketing the forest products is mainly the job of a woman. They contribute 70 percent of the work and the rest only by men. Even if there is no male member in the family the woman does everything but rarely we find a man doing the work of a woman