While gender issues are becoming increasingly integrated in international environment and development policies, the simplistic manner in which they are treated holds scant promise for real change. In the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program in Burkina Faso, women are targeted in projects promoting non-timber forest product commercialisation aimed to incentivise forest conservation. Such policies are often based on essentialist assumptions about what men and women do, ignoring that social relations of inequality need to be understood in context. Drawing on intersectional theory this study analyses REDD+ documents, and data about resource use in two villages in Burkina Faso, showing how the participatory approach in Burkina's REDD+ program is unlikely to encourage currently marginalised voices to be heard in existing forest management organisations. Rather, the lack of acknowledgement of intersecting relations of inequality leads to crucial aspects of NTFP resource use being overlooked, and risks leading to increased marginalisation of certain groups.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1505/146554816820127578Altmetric score:
Dimensions Citation Count:
- Climate Change
- Climate change mitigation and REDD+
- Food Security and Nutrition
- Gender Analysis and Research
Source
International Forestry Review 18(8): 511-521
Publication year
2016
ISSN
1465-5489
Authors
Geographic
Burkina Faso
Topic
Research was conducted by project
Funded by
Geographic
Burkina Faso
Project Leader
Christopher Martius
Bonn Hub Leader and Managing Director of CIFOR Germany