Women Fighting for Mother Earth

In celebration of Women's Day, I thought I'd write something about, well, women. And then I realized I had a problem. There was just so much to write about. And that's the kind of problem I like to have.
I've never had much interest in 'women's studies', probably because I've always had rights and have faced little if any barriers to success based on my gender. But in much of the world, that's not the case. And in much of the developing world, the desire to protect the environment sits easily alongside a desire to empower and promote women. Women's lives depend on the land; dirty water, the overuse (and misuse) of pesticides, pollution, destruction of rainforests - all of these environmental concerns hit poor women particularly hard. The UN acknowledged several years ago that without empowering women, sustainable development would be impossible.

For famous women environmentalists, it is hard to top Dr. Wangari Matthai, the Nobel-Peace winning Kenyan activist. If you want an inspiring read and haven't tried her autobiography 'Unbowed' run, don't walk, to your favorite local bookshop and read it immediately. Her work in re-foresting Africa and, in the process, giving women greater opportunities for empowering livelihoods has landed her in jail, driven her to court, and has started one of the most successful and empowering pan-African movements out there.

For exciting new global co-operative efforts, the global network of women for climate justice recently launched its English website: www.gendercc.net, where it brings together voices and studies interlinking gender and climate change. Women are often more heavily hit than men are by climate-changed-induced heat waves and bear a greater burden in caring for the sick and the young after climate-induced natural disasters.

As a recent short film by World Rainforest Movement points out, women in Brazil, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea areraising their voices against monoculture tree plantations which are taking away rainforests and valuable biodiversity, farmland, and not supporting the needs of the local communities as they originally promised.
As for women doing business - its not always easy. Despite growing evidence that female entrepreneurship is key to a country's ability to develop, there are legal, cultural and practical barriers limiting women's ability to be successful. But it's not hard to find women-based networking solutions to try to break down some of those barriers, such as Nicole Priester, who is working to support African-Brazilian women to manage their own businesses with her company, Encore Solutions, Inc. Or Gisele Yitamben, who founded a national organization for women entrepreneurs in Cameroon when she realized how much women needed training and development beyond micro-finance; and how few women (less than 30) were engaged in Cameroon's significant exporting businesses.
The stories of women making a difference for themselves, their communities and the natural environment could go on for books. And while I don't believe that women are the only solution to saving the planet, we must never forget the power of our collective voices and actions.