Ensure that development assistance strengthens the role of women in the sustainable use of biological resources:
Women are the sole breadwinners in one third of all households in the world. In poor families with two adults, more than half of the available income is from the labor of women and children. Women's important role in the management of biodiversity and biological resources must be recognized, and their participation in decision-making must be ensured at all levels of resource management. Development programs and projects must also promote equal participation by women in planning, implementation, and decision-making.
Figure : Women and biodiversity
3.Creating conditions and incentives for local biodiversity conservation:
Objectives: Correct imbalances in the control of land and resources that cause biodiversity loss
Reduce pressure on fragile ecosystems and wildlands by using land already under cultivation more efficiently and equitably:
In many agricultural countries, skewed distribution of land ownership greatly intensifies the pressures that degrade natural ecosystems. When a small minority controls the most productive agricultural lands, many landless rural people have no alternative but to seek their livelihoods in forests and fragile upland areas, many of which cannot sustain agriculture. Some analysts have concluded that land reform would do more to relieve pressure on forest lands than any other single policy intervention.( Spears and Ayensu, 1985) Researchers, development-aid agencies, and international organizations can also play a role, however, by exposing the social and environmental costs of inequitable land ownership.
Increase incentives for local stewardship of public lands and waters:
In the developing countries, more than 80 percent of the closed forest area is public land( IUCN, UNEP, WWF, 1991).The global figure for coastal resources (near-shore fisheries, coral reefs, mangroves) may be even higher since few countries allow individuals or communities to own reefs and near-shore fisheries. In all cases, however, governments should retain ownership of certain core land and sea resource areas (including national parks) and control of others (including timber concessions and critical watersheds).
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