Gender Perspective for Sustainable Development in Protected Natural Areas (PNA)

Magdalena Lagunas-Vzques1, Luis Felipe Beltrn-Morales1 and Alfredo Ortega-Rubio1

1

Centro de Investigaciones Biolgicas del Noroeste S.C. (CIBNOR S.C.), La Paz, B.C.S., Mxico.
Contact: mlagunas@cibnor.mx

1. Introduction

5. Conclusions

This methodological proposal includes integrative

methodological tools. Out of our conceptual imagination, generating knowledge confirming with reality, applying multidisciplinary approach and ethnosciences; all these tools with a gender perspective.
This proposed methodology is raised exclusively for its
use in gender studies to develop in a rural context
immersed in a natural protected area.
This proposal is framed in the scientific discipline of
social anthropology and critical reflection (Using the
concept of diversity of Ribeiro and Escobar, 2008;
transgressive sociologies of De Souza Santos, 2010;
and Colonial Feminism of Marcos, 2014). For its implementation it is essential to have a multidisciplinary
team committed to and conscious on gender
equality.
The proposed cyclical persistence is a process of return where it is undertaken and learnt from community realities and local knowledge, dialoguing, playing, creating and experiencing other ways of relating, including: community praxis, cultural processes,
social appropriation processes framed in historical
contexts and berms, empirical, practical, realexperiential, natural-environmental, socio-cultural,
economic; participating in intergenerational learning of social justice; human experience similar to a
spiral of consciousness-opening learning to advance
social justice, and humanity.
It is essential systematization and reflection processes
at all stages of work done, and on par creating ways
to measure (indices, indicators, matrices and others).
At each step of implementing the methodology one
should address and answer the following question:

Local populations, their own knowledge and the participation of these native or rural groups are essential and necessary to reach sustainable management and
conservation of nature because of the symbiosis that exists between one and the other. In this regard different experiences and perspectives have been documented for several decades by specialists of diverse disciplines who agree on issues of indigenous and many diverse rural communities, rural development, or resource management, as well as nature conservation, all of which assume the mutual benefits of these interactions.
An interesting observation in this regard is the global correlation between the diversity of "endemic" languages with the mega-biodiversity identified by Maffi (2001)
cited in Boege (2008) where 10 mega-diverse countries were among the 25 countries with the largest number of indigenous languages.
Coevolution between culture and nature (Berkes et al., 2000) is a process that dates back at least thousands of years, which is why biodiversity conservation is impossible without taking into account all the social factors that determine it. Biodiversity conservation should be seen as an essentially interdisciplinary field, that is to
say, whose level of complexity demands equal participation of natural and social scientists (Mascia, et al, 2003: cited in Toledo, 2007).
In Mexico, a thorough study of Boege (2009) analyzed the geographical coincidence of the territories with the majority presence of indigenous population with the
regions of greatest importance in biological diversity of the country proposed by the National Commission of Biodiversity (acronym in Spanish CONABIO), including
the priority terrestrial and hydrological regions and areas for the conservation of birds and indigenous territories where specimens of native maize and other domesticated crops in Mesoamerica have been collected. The results of this study was a biocultural database of important national dimensions. In applying the criteria of CONABIO to define priority regions of terrestrial biodiversity, it was found that the majority of indigenous communities are located in them, more than
10,786,914 hectares, which represents 7% of its total area and 26.3% of the surface of the NPA. The indigenous communities have interacted in long-term processes
with ecosystems of high biodiversity (Boege, 2009).
The use and management of the natural resources made by rural populations are shaped by gender relations, as both women and men have different and unequal control and access. In our country, the status of women in rural areas is exponentially discriminatory assigning them categories such as poor, rural, and indigenous, which imminently is accompanied by high rates of illiteracy, high reproductive rates, exhausting working hours, indiscriminate abuses of their human rights
and in a greater proportion than anywhere else in the country, institutional and community indifference, lacking fundamental rights. Gender perspective, therefore, allows building management processes and equitable and fair environmental management.
Although equality has been written in various international documents throughout the world for several decades, gender equality, today in the early twenty-first
century, is a mere speech and has reached such a degree that runs the risk of staying in paraphrasing. It is necessary that formal institutions and individuals
serious, sensible, and honestwho are dedicated to carry out studies on gender issues ensure proper use of this perspective and advance in strengthening it intellectually and institutionally.

2. Main Objective
Generate a conceptual and methodological proposal with a gender perspective to be applied as a category of social
analysis in rural areas.

3. Methodology
Gender and sustainable development literature is reviewed, constructing a conceptual proposal and gender-sensitive
methodology to be used with rural communities within a PNA.

4. Results
4.1. Conceptual Proposal: Guide for categorization of components or issues that could be included in gender analysis of a rural group in a PNA:
it is necessary to know about the proposed components (Table 1), level of knowledge, participation, accountability, inclusion , ownership, access,
control, power distribution, perception of both men and women.
In addition to a specific description of the components and subcomponents both in public and private or personal context (Tables 2 and 3).

Table 1: General guide of the main components or issues that could be included in a gender analysis.
Public components

Private components (Personal)

Decisions/governance (level of participation).

Personal / family decisions (level of participation).

Use, access and control of natural, community, territorial resources.

Use, access and control of natural resources.

Sexual division of labour.

Sexual division of labor and responsibilities of home and family.

Degradation and environmental impact.

Personal and household space.

Community and regional spaces.

Perception of nature and biodiversity

Photographs taken of: http://tolteca-guillermomarin.blogspot.mx/2013_02_01_

archive.html

What shows that there has been a change,

the idea has managed to take hold, transforming reality or diversifying?

Perception of nature and biodiversity

Table 2. Description of the components of public ambit

Components

Table 3. Description of the Components private

Subcomponents

Decisions/governance (level of participation).

Taking community group-decisions

Participating in local governance
Management-labor organization
organizational management
Management

Use, access and control of natural community and land resources.

Tenure natural resources and land

Types of usufructs of natural resources and territory
Access to natural resources and land
Natural resources exploited: How and who?

Sexual division of labor.

Components

Subcomponents

Personal/family decisions (level of participation).

Motives
Responsibility
Participation
Distribution
Personal agreements
Labor, educational opportunities

Use, access and control of natural resources.

Access
Responsibility
Participation

Employee/wages /salary
Temporary Employment Program
Farm, farming, fishing, etc.
Services, crafts (examples: baker, cook, and others.

Degradation and environmental impact.

Types of environmental impact

Identification of environmental affectation

Community and territorial spaces.

Types of tenure, ownership, usufruct (commonland territories,

community, taken at sea, ZFMT, federal territories granted,
other concessions)
Recreation
Employment
Neighboring support

Perception of nature and the relationships and interactions with local biodiversity.

Knowledge and perception of nature (biotic and abiotic local resources)

Appropriation and use of the local nature

Sexual division of labor and home and family responsiblities. Employee/wages/salary

Reproduction
Paternal / maternal
Educating and raising children
Daily care
Housework (cooking, fetching water
Personal and household space.

Perception of nature and biodiversity.

carrying firewood, etc.)

Recreation / fun / enjoyment
Work / Tasks / responsibilities
Rest breaks / leisure time
Health: emotional, sexual, and reproductive
Knowledge and perception of nature (biotic and abiotic local resources)
Appropriation and use of local nature

4.2. Proposed Methodology: Take into account the use of multidisciplinary approach methodologies: qualitative and participatory (Participation Action Research PAR, Participatory Rural Appraisal) using a multidisciplinary set of ethnosciences (ethnoecology, ethnobotanical and ethnobiology).
The use of this multidisciplinary set of ethnosciences as main tools in the activities of qualitative research will be extremely useful for its main objectives; they will have to deal with the co-participation of
an horizontal dialogue, as equals, and with the recognition of local knowledge and wisdom that have been accumulated with local experience. The ethnographic work includes the following disciplines:
ethnoecology (Reyes-Garca and Sanz, 2007), ethnobotanical (Sanabria-Diago, 2011; Hernndez-Xolocotzi, 1983). and ethnobiology (Sanabria-Diago, 2011), involving ethnobotany, ethnozoology, ethnoecology, ethnopedology and ethnomycology as disciplines covering much of the traditional and comprehensive knowledge that expresses the enormous cultural and biological wealth (SanabriaDiago, 2011) of certain ethnic human groups, rural and farmers, among others. Therefore, it requires a team of committed activists-researchers and action research that necessarily lead to taking a position in any field. Take actions to transform reality with which the cycle designated as cyclical persistence begins.

4.3. Proposal of a cyclical persistent process of learning-awareness (cyclical persistence) is proposed with a gender perspective to implement it in a rural setting surrounded by a conservation
natural area. Based on the conceptual framework of Coastal Management Integrated (MCI) (GESAMP, 1996), a cyclical process of learning-awareness (cyclical persistence) is proposed with a gender
approach to implement it in a immersed countryside in a protected area, see Figure 1. Basically comprises six steps: 1. Systematization, 2. Analysis and reflection, 3. A specific diagnosis, 4. Development
and implementation of strategies, 5. Evaluation analysis-reflection, and 6. Feedback to return to re-start the cycle (adaptive) with more information (knowledge), experience and approach. Similar to
the cycle of a program of MCI, talking about a mature experience when you have managed to close a cycle and begin a new one, i.e. beyond a generation, according to the experience in MCI, it
takes eight to 15 years (mainly for the first round).

Figure 1. Model of cyclical persistence to be included in a process of awareness-learning with a gender perspective ANP (conceptual approach taken of
Integrated Coastal Management, GESAMP, 1996).

6. Discussion and final prospects

Gender perspective in social studies provides visibility to the characteristics of society inequality, which has traditionally been kept hidden,
We can academically consider that it is, among other things, due to the inadequacy of the theoretical bodies of social sciences to provide
explanations to social inequality between men and women. In this regard, it would be interesting to consider that in the binary language of
hegemonic social sciences, gender perspectives become invisible within patriarchal curricular environments.
As Virginia Guzman states (cited in Varela, 2014) gender equality goes far beyond equal opportunities, and it demands the participation of
women in the processes of transforming the basic rules, hierarchies, and practices of public institutions. In this sense, if women are not in areas where the foundations of a new governance are debated and built, it is not certain that public institutions give scope to their different
needs and values, including then in training processes of skills and abilities, and they are recognized in the same degree as agents of
change as the other actors in the public arena (Varela, 2014). Equity will only be possible if women are included in the exercise of power in
its broadest sense to create, to know, to direct, to enjoy, to choose, to be chosen, and so on.

1. Characterization / evaluation
2. Analysis and reflection
3. Specific Diagnosis
4. Implementation of awareness
5. Evaluation analysis-reflection
6. Feedback

Tense

Justice, equality, equity, democracy, and other aspects that bridge gender perspectives are an essential part of the sexual difference feminism proclaims; however, the difference goes far beyond inequality, and diversity is an asset that must be analyzed in the epistemological,
cultural, social, and ecological fields. If we address some emerging anthropological perspective, there is a nascent human need to promote diversity - understood as renouncing to classical notions of universality in diversity seen as the cardinal principle of creativity (Ribeiro
and Escobar, 2008); another stream of thought with innovative approaches is in the transgressive sociologies (De Souza Santos 2010); as well
as the current colonial Latin America Feminisms (Marcos 2014).

Feminism, in its broadest sense, is an epistemological proposal on domain release : colonialism , Westernism, patriarchy, classism, racism and speciesism. Therefore, Ecofeminism was established (at a
given time) in a release method for Mother Earth Dam devastation world system-West. Men and women are permeated by machismo, and reproduce it in different degrees, but not all/as we are willing
to be responsible for ourselves, nor do we assume, as individuals, autonomous, detached from human/cosmic community. It is urgent to remove the westernism of Feminism. Rethinking the paradigm of
interculturalims within Feminism, if this wish is to make a contribution to the liberation of Mother Earth and humanity (Ollanty, 2015).
Our proposed methodology enables to identify the main gender inequalities that must be addressed and resolved, to attain a real sustainable use of natural resources in Natural Protected Areas.

7. Relevant bibliography
De Sousa Santos, B. (2010). Descolonizar el saber, reinventar el poder. Uruguay: Ediciones Trilce. http://www.boaventuradesousasantos.pt/media/Descolonizar%20el%20saber_final%20-%20C%C3%B3pia.pdf
Lagunas-Vzques, M., L. F. Beltrn-Morales y A. Ortega-Rubio, 2016. Desarrollo, feminismo y gnero: cinco teoras y una cancin desesperada desde el Sur. Aceptado para su publicacin en: Estudios del Desarrollo Social: Cuba y Amrica Latina. ISSN 2308-0132 Vol. 4, No. 2, Mayo-Agosto, 2016
Lagunas-Vzques M., A. Gerardo Sosa Y Silva, L. F. Beltrn-Morales y A. 2015. La perspectiva de gnero en los estudios sociales de las ANPs de nuestro pas: una propuesta conceptual y metodolgica. En Ortega-Rubio A., M. J. Pinkus-Rendn e I.C. Espitia- Moreno (Editores). Las reas Naturales Protegidas y la Investigacin Cientfica
en Mxico. (pp. 211-248) Centro de Investigaciones Biolgicas del Noroeste S.C., La Paz B.C.S., Universidad Autnoma de Yucatn, Mrida, Yucatn y Universidad Michoacana de San Nicols de Hidalgo, Michoacn, Mxico. 572 pp.
Marcos S. (2014). Feminismos en camino descolonial. En Ms all del feminismo: caminos para andar. Mxico: Ed. Mrgara Milln, Red de Feminismos Descoloniales.