Gender and climate justice in a Cambodian cashew nut orchard

http://www.ethiopianreview.com/
via CAAI News Media

Lucy Aitken-Read
March 10th, 2010

A few weeks ago I was sitting in a steamy forest drinking juice from a slightly fermented coconut. I had arrived here, at the patrolling station of a Community Forestry bang in the middle of Cambodia, after following a petite woman with a beetle-nut orange smile over fences, through bushes and under the branches of a huge cashew nut orchard. We had all followed her actually; myself and the Oxfam GB team and at least half of the local village. We must have looked like a scene from the Pied Piper as a long line of people snaked in and out of trees, trying to keep up with her, pausing only while she snapped off some branches to chew, loaded up her hat with leaves and fruit and jumped up on rocks to yell gleefully out to those straggling at the back.

Her name was Nhek Oeng and as we sat at the patrolling station downing warm, fizzy coconut juice her story unfolded. Throughout our time in Cambodia we had heard the stories of many women who seemed to be feeling the impacts of climate change, their crops becoming harder and harder to manage as more extreme weather patterns emerged, their children becoming ill in hotter weather than they had seen before. Oeng’s story had another dimension. She had recently joined Oxfam’s Women Empowerment Network and was now taking more and more of a leadership role in her Community Forestry. As well as describing how her village was committed to preserving the forest for the next generation and detailing the sustainable livelihoods work they are all involved in, she also told us of her transformation into a local mover and shaker.

When Oeng first wanted to join the network her husband didn’t want her to do it. It doesn’t really surprise me that before long she had persuaded him otherwise- even with the language and cultural barriers I found her utterly compelling. She described how meeting other women in similar positions, doing similar work, had made her realise her potential. Oeng is now able to represent women’s needs and issues in the Forestry decision making processes and when she described, with a glint in her eye, how she talks about gender all the time the whole crowd erupted into laughter and nodded their heads knowingly. Oeng mentioned that there has been a noticeable decrease in domestic violence and at least 50% increase in the number of men who understand gender equality. She spoke these words with pride, understanding the enormity of these changes.

A few days ago, back in cold, harsh London, I went to the launch of the Women’s Environment Network (WEN) latest report, Gender and Climate Change. Sitting coconut-less in the House of Commons I heard facts and figures about the way women’s lives interact with climate change and vice versa. Perhaps unsurpisingly, two of the main findings of the report are;

•Globally, women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to different and unequal social roles and status.

•Women contribute less to climate change, are impacted more by it, and have less say in decisions about the problem.

It is a pretty desperate situation and provides some serious reading around this year’s International Women’s Week. Gender inequality oozes from each page making it a report that is hard to stomach. I think I was able to get to the end of it because I could see Oeng’s face in my minds eye. Her story involves all of the themes talked about in the report, and many of the themes we saw in a myriad of villages across Cambodia, but her story was strikingly different. Oeng had been able to change her situation. She had taken things in to her own hands, was speaking out in influential spheres and was championing a new way forward for women to engage with climate change issues. Oeng brings tangible hope to those who want to see gender equality permeate everything, and it is hugely encouraging to know that across the world there are female climate warriors with a powerful fire in their belly!

We kicked off this week with International Women’s Day and no doubt the next few days people across the globe will be reflecting on how far we have come on the journey toward gender equality. It is also a time to prepare for the haul ahead. Prompted by the WEN report we must take the chance to mourn the women and children lost to the impacts of climate change, but provoked by stories of those such as Oeng’s we must celebrate the efforts of women who are carving out a future bursting with gender and climate justice.