"The forest management strategy of Nepal is based on people’s participation, which is known as community forestry. This approach was formally introduced in 1978 to encourage active participation of local people in forest management activities as a means to improve their livelihoods. Under the community forestry structure, local people make decisions regarding forest management, utilization and distribution of benefits from a forest; they are organized as a Community Forest User Group.

This paper analyzes how women’s participation affects institutional outcomes related to the decentralized governance of community forests in Madhya Pradesh, India. The analysis is based on data from a representative sample of 641 cases of joint forest management, India’s flagship program to involve communities in forest governance. We focus on two outcomes relevant for local livelihoods: control of illicit grazing and control of illicit felling in the forest.

Floodplain wetlands are the major common pool natural resource in Bangladesh. Mostly men fish, and both men and women collect aquatic plants and snails. Case studies contrast a women-only, men-only, and mixed community based organization (CBO), each of which manages a seasonal floodplain wetland. The two CBOs in which women hold key positions are in Hindu communities where more women use aquatic resources, work for an income, and belong to other local institutions. In the oldest of these CBOs, more women have gradually become office bearers as their recognition in the community has grown.

Un grupo de pobladores de la comunidad Indígena de Térraba en el sur de Costa Rica, se organizan y discuten acerca de los problemas que implicaría la construcción en sus territorios de un mega proyecto hidroeléctrico, por parte del Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE)y el gobierno central de ese país.

En muchas comunidades andinas, se puede encontrar el acceso a la tierra para hombres y mujeres por las siguientes razones: la escasez de la tierra: la tierra del hombre no alcanza para la familia; y la mujer pide sus derechos en el acceso a la tierra, no solo el hombre tiene derechos. El uso de la tierra por lo general en las comunidades andinas es destinado a cultivos y ganadería.

The twentieth century will go down in history as a century when Africa fulfilled the dismal Hobbesian prediction. Africa has become the one continent in the world where human life is hardly worth living because of the man-made problems of inequality and impoverishment.