A symposium on gender and forestry issues took place on April 23 in
Hanoi to discuss ways to promote gender equality in forest protection.
The event was jointly held by the Centre for People and
Forests known as RECOFTC and the REDD+ National Action Programme, as
part of a project on enhancing capacity for forestry-related parties at
grassroots level in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation ( REDD).
According to Deputy Director of the
General Department of Forestry Nguyen Ba Ngai, the event provided
opportunities for domestic and foreign experts to unearth challenges and
shortcomings in the integration of gender issues in forest protection
and adaptation to climate change.
For his part, Programme
Coordinator at RECOFTC Chandra Silori said the gender issue plays an
important role in forest protection and climate change.
Women are more sensitive to impacts from climate change, the coordinator
said, adding that women make up 70 percent of the 1.6 billion poor
people all over the world earning their living from forests.
Silori added that there are differences between men and women in their
awareness of and how they exploit forests, which should be taken into
account when designing policies and projects to ensure the success of
REDD + .
During the workshop, participants
illustrated the difficulties and challenges in realising gender equality
in forest management and discussed measures to cope with the
challenges.-VNA