Introduction:
In the rural and tribal regions of India, women have historically been at the forefront of conserving and managing their forest Commons. Their intimate relationship with forest Commons is shaped by daily dependence on these resources for food, fuel, fodder, and income. But it extends far beyond mere resource collection. Women’s connection to forests is deeply interwoven with their economic security, social identity, cultural practices, and ecological knowledge. While men often focus on timber or commercial use, women’s role in managing non-timber resources, sustaining biodiversity, and protecting ecological balance gives them a unique and indispensable role in forest governance. For women forest, water bodies, land – all such Commons are not just resources, it means their identity built on their emotion, care, knowledge and agency.
Forests as Lifelines for Women
For millions of rural and tribal households, forests are not just landscapes of trees but lifelines that sustain daily survival. Women, in particular, rely on forests for multiple needs. One of the most critical resources is fuelwood, which remains the primary source of energy in many villages where electricity or cooking gas is either unavailable or unaffordable. Women typically spend hours each day collecting firewood, often walking long distances and bearing heavy loads. This task, while essential, comes at the cost of their time, health, and safety, as they may be exposed to physical strain or even violence in remote forest areas.
Equally important is fodder collection. Livestock forms an integral part of rural economies, providing milk, manure, and additional income. Women are usually responsible for maintaining livestock, and ensuring a steady supply of fodder is critical to sustaining household livelihoods. Forests provide a dependable source of grasses, leaves, and other fodder, which women collect daily, often balancing this work alongside farming and household duties.
Perhaps the most undervalued yet vital contribution of women to forest-based livelihoods is through the collection of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). These include fruits, nuts, mushrooms, honey, tubers, medicinal plants, and fibers. Many of these are consumed at home, improving family nutrition and health, while others are sold in local markets, generating cash income. Studies show that in several tribal and forest-dependent regions, women earn a significant portion of their household income from NTFPs, sometimes as much as 40–60% (Haque, T., 2020). For households where formal employment opportunities are scarce, these products form an economic safety net, buffering families against hunger and poverty.
Women often grow a wider diversity of crops. Forest foods – wild leaves, fruits, roots, tubers, seeds, nuts, mushrooms, saps, gums, and forest animals and their products (like eggs and honey) – supplement the foods produced by agriculture and obtained from other sources. Also, women often have substantial knowledge regarding the identification and preparation of nutritious forest foods to enhance the nutrition and health of their households (FAO, 2012).
In addition, there is a causal interrelation between gender inequality and environmental degradation, where the loss of biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate change tend to exacerbate existing gender inequalities. The negative impacts of these phenomena are greater on women in a position of vulnerability, affecting their livelihoods, assets, and health.
Gendered roles in governing forests:
Traditionally, women’s conservation efforts operated informally, sustained through cultural practices, community rules, and unpaid labour. Their contributions were critical yet often invisible in formal governance. While women are often perceived primarily as resource gatherers in rural and tribal areas, their role extends far beyond the collection of fuelwood, fodder, or non-timber products from common forests managed by their village. Women have historically been central to conserving forests, regenerating degraded ecosystems, and shaping grassroots conservation movements. Their involvement is not simply environmental activism; it is a survival strategy, born from their dependence on forests for food, fodder, fuelwood, medicine, and income. Protecting forests, for women, means protecting their livelihoods, dignity, and future.
Women’s conservation ethic is also deeply practical. Because when forests degrade, it is women who bear the brunt of increased burdens. A shortage of fuelwood means walking longer distances, sometimes risking safety in remote areas. Reduced fodder availability directly threatens livestock health, impacting milk, manure, and supplementary income. The loss of wild edibles or medicinal plants affects household nutrition and health. Because these consequences are immediate and tangible, women are often the first to recognize the need for conservation and the most committed to ensuring sustainable use of resources.
Women are therefore not just passive “beneficiaries” of forest resources but can play a more meaningful role as active custodians and stewards of these common resources. Their conservation efforts, grounded in daily realities and enriched by ecological knowledge, have shaped some of India’s most significant grassroots movements. From hugging trees in Uttarakhand to leading forest patrols in Odisha, women have consistently demonstrated that they can play a more meaningful role in governing the forest Commons in a community. If only they were given the opportunity, they would prove to the world the worth of their knowledge and skills in governing the common forest.
Women and men often engage with forest resources in markedly different ways, shaped by social norms, cultural practices, and the gendered division of labour at the household level. These differences influence how each group uses resources, the knowledge they hold, and the priorities they bring to governance and conservation.
In rural contexts, men and women typically assume distinct tasks and responsibilities within households and communities. For example, women are often responsible for collecting fuelwood, fodder, and gathering non-timber forest products for daily consumption. They also play a crucial role in subsistence farming, collecting water, maintaining kitchen gardens, and rearing livestock that provide nutritional diversity for families. These responsibilities make women highly dependent on nearby natural resources and give them detailed knowledge of local biodiversity, seasonal variations, and resource management practices. Spending more time in forests than men, women develop a detailed understanding of seasonal cycles, soil fertility, species diversity, and regeneration patterns. This allows them to promote practices such as rotational harvesting, restrictions on grazing during vulnerable seasons, or the planting of multi-use native species.
Men, on the other hand, tend to be more engaged in activities that are market-oriented or commercially driven. In many regions, men dominate decision-making and marketing, focusing on income generation and market sales. In agriculture, men often prioritize crops that can be sold for profit, while women manage subsistence crops and vegetables that ensure household food security.
Exclusion of Women from Forest Governance
Irrespective of the fact that women often possess a deeper and more critical understanding of forests, they remain largely excluded from governance systems due to systemic discrimination and structural inequalities. Social norms and patriarchal institutions have long forced women into subordinate roles, where they are viewed as “beneficiaries” or “laborers” rather than legitimate “decision-makers” or “stewards” of the Commons. This exclusion perpetuates a cycle of marginalization, leaving women more vulnerable to exploitation, gender-based violence, and the denial of their fundamental right to a dignified life.
However, when it comes to participation in forest governance, women are often denied their rightful space. They are frequently excluded from planning and decision-making processes, resulting in decisions being made on their behalf without adequately understanding or addressing their needs and priorities. Prevailing social norms and power structures further restrict their ability to voice their concerns and influence decisions within community governance institutions.
For instance, village meetings often see men deciding which tree species should be planted in community forests or where water conservation structures should be created, without adequately considering women’s knowledge and needs. Such decisions may prioritise commercially valuable species or locate water structures closer to settlements, overlooking the diversity of ecological and livelihood needs within the community. When women are meaningfully involved in these decisions, they often advocate for a wider diversity of species that meet different household and ecological needs, as well as locations for water structures that serve multiple purposes and benefit a broader section of the community. Their participation, therefore, brings valuable knowledge and perspectives that can contribute to more inclusive, equitable, and ecologically sound forest governance.
Women also face significant challenges in deriving sustainable livelihoods from forest resources. With limited exposure to wider markets and institutional support, they often find themselves at a disadvantage when negotiating with traders and other market players. Women are primarily responsible for collecting Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs), which, for many, represent their only source of cash income. Yet, they frequently lack the bargaining power, market linkages, and institutional support required to secure fair prices or add value to these products. In many instances, women also face harassment from local authorities while collecting forest produce and from traders in local markets, which are often the only markets accessible to them.
The marginalization of women is not unique to forest governance but extends across natural resource management. Gender differences persist in rights and access to land, water, minerals, forests, and livestock. In most societies, women typically have fewer ownership rights compared to men. While men are more likely to hold de jure rights—formal, legally recognized ownership—women often exercise only de facto rights, such as land-use rights or forest use rights that lack legal security.
This lack of secure tenure has wide-ranging consequences. Without recognized ownership, women are often excluded from formal decision-making spaces that determine how resources are managed and distributed. Furthermore, insecure land rights limit women’s access to credit, technology, information, and government schemes that could enable investment in improved resource management and conservation practices. For instance, women farmers who cultivate subsistence crops or manage forest produce are frequently unable to access loans or subsidies because they cannot provide land titles as collateral. This structural disadvantage restricts not only their economic opportunities but also their ability to influence policies and practices that directly affect their lives.
Excluding women from governance also undermines the sustainability of natural resources. Women’s ecological knowledge—rooted in daily interaction with forests, water, and biodiversity—remains untapped in formal decision-making processes. Women have long been the custodians of valuable local knowledge regarding the sustainable use of forest resources. This knowledge, passed down through generations, plays a crucial role in conserving biodiversity and maintaining ecological balance.
Women are generally underrepresented in forest user groups, such as village forest committees and community forest associations (Agarwal, 2001, 2010; Coleman and Mwangi, 2012). Rules allowing only one person per household to participate in forest user groups tend to exclude women, thus adding to the host of other barriers to women’s participation such as sociocultural norms, gender segregation in public spaces, social perceptions of women’s roles, women’s lack of bargaining power, and men’s entrenched claims and control over natural resources. Women are often excluded from participation in decision-making for reasons such as social and cultural barriers, logistical barriers relating to the timings and length of meetings, and male bias in attitudes.
But evidence shows that women’s participation in the decision-making processes of forest institutions leads to more equitable rules that take into account women’s particular needs, and thus reduce gender-based conflicts over forest access and use (Agarwal, 2001). More gender balanced groups can capitalize on the complementary roles of men and women and mobilize people for collective action.
The passage of the Forest Rights Act (2006) marked a turning point by providing legal recognition for communities to manage forests and mandating the inclusion of women in Community Forest Rights Management Committees (CFRMCs). On paper, this was a progressive step towards gender equity in forest governance. However, the reality on the ground often told a different story. In many cases, women’s participation remained tokenistic—names were listed for compliance, but their voices were sidelined during decision-making. Genuine inclusion, where women’s knowledge and priorities shaped governance processes, was rare. Yet, several studies revealed that when women were meaningfully included, governance outcomes – ranging from sustainable harvesting to stronger enforcement of protection rules – improved significantly.
Women’s ecological knowledge:
So, to answer why the involvement of women in forest governance matters, one can say that the involvement of women in leading forest conservation roles is not simply a question of equity—it is a matter of necessity. For one, women’s daily dependence on forests equips them with deep, practical knowledge of the ecosystem, alongside the skills required to identify, forage, and manage its resources sustainably. Globally, indigenous and rural women are estimated to make up more than 50 percent of the population dependent on land. To exclude these voices from conservation and management decisions is to exclude an entire body of knowledge, experience, and rights that are central to the stewardship of forests.
Equally important is women’s ability to manage resources in ways that prioritize regeneration and balance. Women often harvest plants or fruits only at certain times of the year, ensuring that trees and shrubs are not overexploited. Such practices directly contribute to biodiversity preservation and sustainable forest management. Their care and knowledge of the forest is clearly visible in the harvesting practices followed by them where they harvest the tuber without disturbing the plant or collect only dry woods without cutting the branches for fuelwood.
Beyond resource use, women play a vital role as transmitters of ecological knowledge. Through informal education within families and communities, women teach children how to identify edible plants, respect natural cycles, and maintain practices that ensure long-term sustainability. Farming techniques such as intercropping, organic composting, or rotational grazing are often passed down by women, who integrate ecological wisdom into everyday survival strategies.
This intergenerational transfer is not only cultural but also strategic. As forests face increasing pressures from development initiatives and climate change, ensuring that younger generations inherit knowledge of sustainable practices becomes crucial for resilience. In this sense, women are not just protectors of today’s forests but guardians of tomorrow’s ecological heritage.
One of the most powerful reasons for women’s leadership in forest governance lies in their ability to balance livelihood needs with ecological conservation. Because women’s daily survival depends on fuelwood, fodder, and non-timber forest products, they have a vested interest in ensuring that these resources do not disappear. Unlike commercial actors, whose extraction is often profit-driven, women’s resource use is guided by necessity and sustainability. They collect what is required, manage resources to last throughout the year, and engage in practices that regenerate forests rather than deplete them.
Beyond ecological arguments, there is also a profound rights-based rationale. Excluding women from governance denies them recognition as equal citizens and rightful stewards of the Commons. It reinforces structural inequalities that cast women only as “beneficiaries” of development rather than active decision-makers. Given their central role in sustaining forests and communities, this exclusion is unjust and counterproductive.
Studies have shown that when women are included in forest governance bodies, outcomes are significantly more sustainable: forest cover increases, biodiversity is better protected, and community compliance with conservation rules improves. But women must be included in forest governance not because they are more vulnerable but because they have different perspectives and experiences to contribute. Though they face different conditions of vulnerability than men, they are capable of offering different solutions than men; and this in the long run, helps mitigate climate change, manage all commonly held natural resources appropriately, and protect the environment.
Conclusion:
Including women is, however, not as simple as giving them positions in decision-making bodies. The social, economic, political, and cultural norms are such that most women hesitate to take the lead, with the ultimate weight being given to the man’s word. The process is therefore a gradual one, aimed at long-term education, recognition of rights, and established independence, for women to not only represent but actively participate in critical conservation discussions.
Moving forward, policy and community efforts must focus on:
- Ensuring meaningful participation of women in governance spaces, beyond token representation.
- Providing capacity building tailored to women’s needs and contexts.
- Sensitising men and building supportive governance systems.
- Recognising and valuing women’s ecological knowledge as a cornerstone of sustainable forest management.
By ensuring that women are not only present but empowered in decision-making spaces, forest governance can move from exclusion and tokenism toward true sustainability. Recognizing women’s knowledge and rights is not simply about correcting a historical injustice – it is about securing the future of forests themselves.
References:
Agarwal, B. 2001.
Participatory exclusions, community forestry and gender: an analysis for South Asia and a conceptual framework. World Development, 29(10): 1623–1648.
Agarwal, B. 2010.
Does women’s proportional strength affect their participation? Governing local forests in South Asia. World Development, 38(1): 98–112.
Coleman, E. & Mwangi, E. 2012.
Women’s participation in forest management: a cross-country analysis. Global Environmental Change, 23(1): 193–205.
WOMEN IN FORESTRY: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES, FAO, UN
Haque, T. (2020). Securing Forest Rights and Livelihoods of Tribals: Challenges and Way Forward. National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj.