Impact of Environmental Crime on Indigenous Women: Evidence from Ecuador, Mexico, Cameroon and Indonesia
Publisher: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Author(s): Faith Ngum and Radha Barooah
Date: 2023
Topics: Climate Change, Gender, Governance, Renewable Resources
Countries: Cameroon, Ecuador, Indonesia, Mexico
Organized crime is driving environmental degradation and biodiversity loss in forest eco- systems around the world. The impact of environmental degradation on indigenous forest-dependent communities is widely reported and acknowledged in international development and environment protection discourses. However, the gendered impact of environmental crime, while part of the broader conversation on environmental justice and biodiversity loss, is limited to international conservation and climate change frameworks.
As a part of the Resilience Fund’s broader work on women’s resilience to organized crime, this exploratory policy brief will unpack the ways in which women are struggling, adapting and responding to the impacts of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss caused by the illegal exploitation of forest regions and their surrounds, especially in rural and indigenous habitats. Women living within indigenous communities that have socio-cultural and economic ties to their natural environment are increasingly affected by the growing presence of illegal extractive economies. Forest resources mean different things to men and women, depending on their roles, priorities and interests in meeting household needs and social expectations. How women perceive, cope with and respond to environmental crimes and biodiversity loss is shaped by the disruption of traditional gender roles and family dynamics. Gender roles tend to shape power structures that also determine access to rights and agency, including women’s political participation.