Article 2: Women Work to Fight Deforestation

When Women Lead,  Fewer Trees are Cut Down

Wangaari Mathai, a Kenyan environmental activist and femenist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for teaching women farmers about planting trees to improve the environment and their lives. 

Reducing Deforestation 

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) led the study. Last month, their results were published. The study was in the journal Nature Climate Change. It explored whether gender quotas for local lawmaking groups could help reduce deforestation. 

In this study, the gender quota means making sure a certain number of women are involved in decisions. The decisions are about how many trees to cut down. 

Many of the world's endangered forests are owned and managed by small community groups. Women have often had no decision-making powers in those groups. For this reason, some local governments have made laws. The laws say a certain number of decision-makers must be women. 

Groups Must Have One-Third Women Members

Argentina is one country with this type of law. India and Rwanda have these laws as well. Each of these countries makes sure 30 percent of the people in the groups making decisions are women. Since 2009, the country Nepal has said that at least half of the people in local committees representing forest communities must be women.

Still, those examples are unusual. Krister Andersson is one of the study's co-authors. He's a professor at CU Boulder. Andersson said most lawmakers do not consider making sure there's an equal number of women. "This study suggests they should," he said.

Previous studies show women feel closer to the environment. They are also more likely to support efforts to save land, studies say. "We wanted to know what would happen if you offered financial incentives for groups to conserve and made sure at least half the members were women," Andersson said. Financial incentives are money rewards. The rewards were given to groups who reduced the number of trees cut down.

Many countries have laws about including women. However, women still make up less than half of the groups making decisions. The laws often say groups must include at least 30 percent women.

The CU Boulder study included 31 villages near group-managed forests. The forests were in three countries. The countries were Indonesia, Peru and Tanzania. The researchers asked 440 forest users in those communities to play a game. In this game, they had to decide how many trees to cut down in a forest. The participants were divided into groups of eight. Half the groups needed 50 percent women. The other half of the groups had no gender quotas.

In the game's first round, the groups earned 5 tokens for each tree they cut down. In the next round, groups were told they could get far more tokens. To get 160 tokens, all group members had to come to an agreement. They must agree to not cut any trees down. 

The rewards are similar to what happens in a Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) program. PES programs are growing around the globe. Healthy ecosystems provide many services to people and wildlife. These include clean water, wildlife habitats and crop pollination. Moreover, trees take carbon dioxide out of the environment. Scientists believe too much carbon dioxide in the air leads to global warming. 

Nathan Cook was one of the authors of the study. He said that the groups made up of half women reduced the number of trees they chose to cut down when there was a reward. 

No Differences Between Group Decisions Without A Money Reward

Cook said the groups made up of 50 percent women also shared the money reward more evenly. There was no meaningful difference between the decisions made by the groups without a money reward. Once a reward was offered, the difference was obvious. 

The groups with half women reduced their harvesting rate by 51 percent. The groups with fewer women lowered their harvesting rate by 39 percent. In other words, the groups with more women kept more trees. 

"It is not the gender quota by itself that is making a difference," Andersson said. He said when women were involved and offered a reward, it made them feel "empowered."