Last month, MADRE Communications Director Yifat Susskind was interviewed by Anna Lappé, co-founder of the Small Planet Institute. In the exchange posted on Anna Lappé's blog Take a Bite out of Climate Change, they talked about the disproportionate impact of climate change on women around the world, who make up 70% of the world's poor. Yifat also shared stories of the solutions being implemented by MADRE sister organizations. An excerpt is below:
Women’s livelihoods and social roles – in particular those of rural and Indigenous women – depend directly on the ecosystems that are being destroyed by climate change. It’s mostly women who are responsible for subsistence agriculture and for collecting water and biomass fuels for household use. So, for example, when water sources are depleted by drought, it’s still the job of women to provide water for their families. Only the job becomes much harder. We know women who used to walk 7 kilometers a day to haul water, and now they walk 15 because the river closest to them has run dry. [...]
Women are not only disproportionately victimized by the confluence of climate change and gender discrimination. Women also have specialized knowledge that’s critical to their communities’ capacity to survive and adapt. That’s because women traditionally navigate the relationship between their communities and the ecosystems of which they are a part. [...]
These are the very skills that need to be developed and institutionalized now that storms and floods are increasing with climate change. Policymakers should be asking for help from these women. Instead, rural and Indigenous women are seen by policy makers primarily as poor and illiterate and victims of climate change, not as resources with expertise that needs to be developed and adapted.
*Photo credit: MADRE
Striking points. Women historically have had less opportunity and circumstances to change their location and jobs. We will have to change ourselves a lot more to improve things.
Posted by: Quotes About Change | February 26, 2011 at 09:59 PM