Latin America and the Caribbean are a global power of natural and cultural diversity, and at the same time, lead the rates of unequal development, with impacts in poverty and degradation of nature. Considering the marginal contribution of greenhouse gases, the climate crisis disproportionately affects the region, mostly impacting the more vulnerable population and its ways of life. Women “stand out” within this group.
On the other hand, even though conservation of nature is a very efficient and effective tool for climate change adaptation and mitigation, it’s still an opportunity waiting for its turn in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the same way, even though women’s contribution to the economy and culture are crucial to the region’s social well-being, their full integration into decision-making and management of climate change mitigation and adaptation processes still presents significant gaps.
Consequently, our region can make use of the strategic advantages of its great natural and cultural heritage and turn around the disproportionate use of nature, which is threatening its capacity for resilience and the provision of well-being to its population. A key tool in this process is the design and stewardship of instances for cooperation, including pertinent and timely actions to address the climate crisis—aggravated by the loss of biodiversity—, and social and gender inequity that underline economic, cultural and political practices in all of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Proposals for change must be addressed in a coherent and integrated manner, and therefore, these instances for cooperation, conceived with the people that live in the territories, can be a way to improve policies that regulate soil use, the management of fisheries and water resources, and agriculture, to reduce the use of polluting substances or promote planning of urban and rural areas, among others.
Promoting these changes through actions that gather experience and several forms of knowledge are an ethical and practical imperative, providing space to those who are most acutely impacted by the social crisis, responding to the urgency of the global mandates of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention on Climate Change, or the Convention on Biological Diversity.
In this series of policy briefs, we present the regional integrative work regarding three key pillars related to the environmental crisis we face: climate change, biodiversity and knowledge with a gender approach; “The Latin America and Caribbean Initiative: Biodiversity, gender and knowledge”, which is comprised of more than 20 academic institutions, research centers and interdisciplinary organizations, collected the experience and knowledge existing in the region to propose, design and connect efforts to advance and above all, accelerate the development of strategic and concrete actions for the benefit of our societies.
This document prioritizes fields of action based on knowledge, scientific research and the experience of said institutions, communities and local or central governments, considering visions and desires, revealing best practices and the benefits of local governance in climate change adaptation and mitigation.
This text gathers these visions and experiences in documents by theme synthesis: knowledge and sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean; marine conservation and women hand in hand; the conservation of terrestrial ecosystems and the importance of women in the sustainable use of resources; the importance of aquatic ecosystems and water, the growth of cities in the region and their planning; and a territorial, social and feminine outlook to properly face natural disasters.
Each of these proposals in particular, and all of them together represent new forms of relating with the region’s socioecological systems, in which the contribution of nature, women and knowledge is made clear in proposals for concrete actions in specific territories.