Pan-African Strategies for Environmental Preservation: Why Women's Rights are the Missing Link
![handle is hein.journals/berkwolj23 and id is 185 raw text is: Pan-African Strategies for
Environmental Preservation:
Why Women's Rights Are the Missing Link
Flynn Colemant
INTRODUCTION
The intimate connection between human and environmental rights has been
explored extensively.1 Largely omitted from the discussion, however, is the role
rural women have played, and can play, in protecting environmental rights. This
Article argues that the protection and fulfillment of women's human rights, in
the context of an evolving Pan-African system for the protection of
environmental rights, can be a catalyst for positive environmental change in Sub-
Saharan African countries. Using examples from several Sub-Saharan African
countries, this Article explores the potential benefits of increasing women's
participation in their communities as an effective strategy for environmental
protection.2 Enhancing women's roles in environmental policymaking and
granting them greater land rights will result in more effective environmental
preservation, while also improving the realization of women's rights.
The environment provides a livelihood for many women in rural areas of
Sub-Saharan Africa.3 Agriculture is Sub-Saharan Africa's main economic
f J.D. Candidate (2008), Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley School of Law. I am grateful to family and
friends for their support and valuable comments. In particular, I would like to thank Tom
Coleman, Cymie Payne, Wiltrud Harms, Iris Halpem, and the members of the Berkeley
Journal of Gender, Law & Justice for their assistance. Any errors are my own.
1. See ALAN E. BOYLE & MICHAEL R. ANDERSON, HUMAN RIGHTS APPROACHES TO
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (1996). See generally JAN HANCOCK, ENVIRONMENTAL
HUMAN RIGHTS: POWER, ETHICS AND LAW (2003).
2. See FAREDA BANDA, WOMEN, LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS: AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE 275-
79 (2005) (recognizing that women tend to experience disadvantages such as poverty,
discrimination, lack of political power, and land rights more than their urban counterparts).
See also Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women art.
14, Sept. 3, 1981, CEDAW/C/2007/III/1 [hereinafter CEDAW] (focusing particularly on
rural women).
3. I recognize that researching and drawing conclusions about all women is impossible. I do not
claim to speak about the individual or collective experiences of all Sub-Saharan African
women or all African women in general. Rather, this Recent Development attempts to look
at specific examples of different women's involvement in a geographical region's
environmental movement and politics, and explain to how their particular efforts show the
BERKELEY JOURNAL OF GENDER, LAW & JUSTICE](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/berkwolj23&div=8&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Pan-African Strategies for Environmental Preservation: Why Women's Rights are the Missing Link
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