Are women important in sustainable forest management

This paper provides three types of evidence demonstrating women's importance in forest management. The first draws on Colfer's extensive, long term ethnographic experience in the forests of the United States and Indonesia---showing the various ways in which women participate in local, informal forest management; the second draws on her participation in a criteria and indicators project (in Cote d'Ivoire, Brazil, Indonesia, Cameroon, Austria, and the United States)---showing similar evidence, based on short term studies; and the third involves a systemic analysis of factors affecting forests and human well being. This last traces the links among women's status, women's education, women's involvement in wage labour, human health, population, and forests.