Guatemala, June 29, 2021 (IUCN). Through the Selva Maya Natural Resources Protection Project, a toolbox has been consensually developed so that populations have voice and decision about participation, planning and management of protected areas. A process that resulted in a document that takes into account the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities and women to access manage and enjoy benefits deriving from the natural areas they live in and conserve.

This is a guiding document to improve social participation in protected areas. It is designed to make management plans an instrument in which the interests and needs of women, youth and men are equitably reflected with mutual commitments to responsible and sustainable management.

The guide has gender-sensitive and/or gender-transformative actions, an outcome of planning sessions in several workshops and many interviews. Its creation initiated with management considerations, tools for implementing the operating phase and the zoning process, which contemplated results of the gender analysis with an eye to narrowing the gaps identified. 

Marina Leticia López, who directs the Gender Unit of the National Council on Protected Areas of Guatemala (CONAP for its name in Spanish) said, “It was an interesting process, seen as opportunity to continue the path of institutionalizing strategic steps for gender equity. First with a review of documents on gender perspective, conducting consultations and then applying this approach, translated into methodologies to prepare the specific guidance that strengthen capacities in all of the processes”.

According to Deyssi Rodríguez Martínez, conservation specialist at the Development Department of the Guatemalan System of Protected Areas (SIGAP, for its name in Spanish) and country focal point for the Man and the Biosphere Programme, this analysis clarifies how women and young people participate in decisions about natural resources in their area. It is a start toward better understanding of the way these processes occur from the standpoint of gender equity and even based on criteria of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “It revealed that gap to us, and closed it, although there are still many challenges and much to strengthen. We made a first step, a significant foundation for changing our language, for beginning to see that participation goes beyond having community representatives without examining how they are participating, maintaining continual respect for very local dynamics.”

The guide contains recommendations about conducting studies and scientific research, managing natural populations, protection and surveillance, women’s participation in fire prevention and reduction and training in environmental education. But it also addresses meetings, workshops and campaigns to reflect and inform about domestic violence, sexual and reproductive health, rights of women and indigenous peoples, ways of raising and educating girls and boys, equitable division of housework and other issues.

Impact of the guide

The document sets out guidelines to improve current conditions in the protected area, bearing in mind the link between conservation and women’s and men’s equitable development in the different local communities and ethnic and linguistic groups. The aim is better participation and more equitable sharing so that certain sectors without access to resources can obtain them more easily.

“These guidelines have been an awakening and a closing of gaps, even though we’ve been talking about it since 1989 in our Protected Areas Act and guidance on equitable social participation in our SIGAP management instruments, but this was very general. We settled for simply having local participation without looking at the breakdown, the proportions of men and women and more than that, the level of participation by these groups, mainly women. There has been significant development of this theme within the country. It began to “click” for us, to close certain gaps and have examples to guarantee equitable participation, not just at the specific local level, but also in terms of gender and the level at which those groups of women participate,” explained Rodríguez Martínez.

Properly implemented, the guide will support large-impact actions, such as the use of inclusive language, an ongoing and culturally relevant process of information, and the social and economic empowerment of women and other disadvantaged groups in terms of access and control of natural resources.

Marina Leticia López views the guide’s impact as meaning “we would finally be achieving capability for rights-based work. Because in the end, those actions are aimed at the well-being of humankind, of the people we are, men and women, in these different world visions. For me, the impact would be working in the frame of rights, fulfilling, reinforcing, revitalizing or fostering a community perspective in which we feel part of those efforts for biological diversity. One where we have the opportunity for reuniting with natural resources”.

The guide also aims for the opinions, needs and input of men, women and other groups to be heard and taken into account at the different stages of formulating a plan, and particularly in decisions affecting them about access, use and exploitation of the resources they depend on.

López feels that continuing work for effective management without the community perspective would separate the two, treating nature’s resources and biodiversity in terms of predominantly economic use. “We have tried to go into the analysis with the mentality of working for and with people, no longer seeing conservation models as a ban, where they feel, when an area is declared protected, and the opportunity to use resources is shut off. Because in the end, why are we protecting, if not for society itself? But if we aim for full and inclusive participation where we, men and women, are immersed in those management activities to care and protect sustainable use, we would be guaranteeing those resources for current and future generations”.

The two professionals agree that achieving culturally relevant gender equity requires time, and since this entails changing people’s attitudes and behaviours requires directing efforts to the implementation of concrete and sustained actions.  The guide therefore suggests assessing certain criteria, such as equitable benefit, technical and social feasibility, local resource priorities, sustainability, participation and valuation of local knowledge and experiences.

“We still have a long way to go. There are many things to strengthen, but I think working on the guide mainly gave us the opportunity to analyse how, with whom and in what way we were doing it. And that was the great leap to the strategy as outcome, because we began to have that orientation of speaking appropriately in the language of gender equity and cultural relevance in this mega diverse country, not just in terms of natural biological diversity, but also cultural,” concluded advisor Rodríguez Martínez, focal point of Man and the Biosphere.

Global challenge, joint efforts!

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