Roles of indigenous women in forest conservation: A comparative analysis of two indigenous communities in the Philippines

Abstract

The roles indigenous women play in forest conservation represent the spaces allocated by society on the basis of their gender. The study employs a comparative analysis of two indigenous communities in Nueva Ecija in the Philippines to describe the role of indigenous women in forest conservation and how the intersectionality of gender, ethnicity, and traditional knowledge creates an impact on forest conservation. The theory of Eco-feminism, mixed methods of qualitative, quantitative, and documentary analysis, is employed. The study shows that gender-restrictive indigenous communities create a greater degree of environmental degradation. There is a link between women and nature reflecting the different degrees of women’s subordination in patriarchy and the levels of women’s participation in forest conservation. Women of indigenous communities identified inadequate access to resources, education, and sources of income as the major challenges they face in forest conservation. It is, therefore, a challenge to indigenous women to dismantle structures encapsulating them in a situation of subordination to free the forest from the grinding effect of poverty resulting in the exploitative extraction of natural resources.