Webinar Series: Women, Culture and Nature: Gender responsive solutions for biodiversity conservation

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Listen to the Women: Discuss women, culture and nature and make a difference

Webinar to mark the International Day for Biodiversity, May 22, 2020

ONLINE on our Youtube channel Women4Biodiversity

Objective: Reflect on this year’s theme of “Our solutions are in Nature”

1. Amplify good practices and initiatives by women in biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

2. To identify issues that can drive transformative change in the inclusion and empowerment of women and girls in biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

3. Identify guiding principles and strategies to support implementing the biodiversity and human rights nexus through recognizing women as agents of change

Date : May 22, 2020

Time : 8PM Bangkok / 8AM Mexico

Registration : https://forms.gle/RJEz3GA4zYhitgRo7

Panelists:

1. Sushila Kumari Thapa Magar, AIPP Foundation (Thailand)

2. Thingreiphi Lungharwo (North-East India)

3. Guadalupe Yesenia Hernández Márquez (Mexico)

4. Edna Kaptoyo, (Kenya)

5. Ruth Spencer (Antigua and Barbuda)

6. Christina Eghenter, WWF (Indonesia)

7. Claudia Iturate-Lima, Environmental Lawyer (Vancouver)

8. Tanya McGregor, Gender Programme Officer, Convention on Biological Diversity (Montreal)

Moderator: Mrinalini Rai, Women4Biodiversity // CBD Women Caucus

Meet the Speakers

Perspectives on Rights of Indigenous Women and Girls and Biodiversity in Asia : Sushila Thapa Magar (AIPP)

Sushila is a forester with demonstrated expertise in participatory natural resource management ensuring good governance, livelihood improvement, gender equity & social inclusion. She is currently the Programme Coordinator for Indigenous Women (IWs) Programme at Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) based in Chiangmai, Thailand. AIPP, a regional network of Indigenous Peoples organizations in Asia region, defends Indigenous Peoples Rights. Her work focuses on Indigenous Women’s Land Rights building their capacities, consolidating their voices, building solidarity, and strengthening networks across by working to pursue the recognition of Indigenous Women’s traditional knowledge and practices for Global Crisis like Climate Change and biodiversity  and more recently with COVID-19 pandemic. She holds M.Sc in Mountain Forestry.

Local solutions by women in response to COVID-19 pandemic : Thingreiphi Lungharwo (NorthEast India)

Thingreiphi is a member of the Naga Women’s Union in Northeast, India, and belongs to the Tangkhul Naga community of Ukhrul, Manipur, India.  She advocates strongly for biodiversity to address poverty, sustainable development and well-being. As a community organiser she coordinates training programs to raise human rights awareness and to mobilise community members to claim their rights. A focus of these programs is on natural resource use and the impacts of climate change, deforestation and biodiversity conservation. Thingreiphi works with communities including women and youth to ensure their voices are heard and recognized in local, national to global biodiversity agenda. In December 2016, she was also nominated as GEF SGP’s first-ever global Indigenous fellows and her research focused on the development of traditional knowledge indicators

Biocultural Community Protocols (BCP) in a world with diverse knowledge system : Yesenia Hernández Márquez (Mexico)

Yesenia is an indigenous Zapotec women from Oaxaca, Mexico. She is a biologist and an activist. Her expertise extends from participatory rural assessment to biodiversity conservation in indigenous territories to wildlife conservation, soil and watershed conservation and undertaking environmental impact assessment and she has been engaged in supporting alternative tourism in indigenous territories in Oaxaca. She is actively engaged at local, national as well as international platforms, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), UNFCCC, World Water Forum, SDGs and others, including being the focal point for the Earth Charter in Oaxaca State. She is a member of the International World Heritage Watch Network and is the Indigenous and local knowledge focal point for IPBES in Mexico.

Indigenous Women as Stewards of Biodiversity : Edna Chepkorir Kaptoyo
(Kenya)

Edna is indigenous Pokot woman from Kenya. She is a social development specialist, human and women’s rights advocate, and is actively engaged in UN and related international processes focusing on advancing the issues and concerns of indigenous peoples in Africa in environmental governance processes. She has worked extensively in capacity building and awareness raising on climate change and gender among policy makers at the national to international level especially on the need for gender sensitive climate change project planning and budgeting in UNFCC meetings. She is a founding member of the national gender and climate change working group Kenya, former member advisory council to the International Indigenous Women’s Forum (FIMI) and its Global Leadership School of Indigenous Women. She was 2018/19 GEF SGP’s first-ever global Indigenous fellow for climate change.

Escazu Agreement and provisions for women in National  and international environment policy for Environmental Protection and  Management : Ruth Spencer (Antigua and Barbuda)

Ruth has many years of experience engaging with CBD and UNCCD processes in Antigua and Barbuda. She has been able to effectively organize local dialogues bringing together key stakeholder actors including from policy makers to practitioners and showcasing the work done by the community She received the 2019 inaugural International Women’s Day Award in Antigua and Barbuda for her contribution to the empowerment of women and girls with regard to Climate Change and the Environment. Ruth was highlighted by UN Women as a Climate Change Activist in the Caribbean. She has also set up a network of local groups and individuals in the island of Antigua and Barbuda to promote sustainable waste management. Ruth is a member of the advisory team to the CBD Women Caucus to guide the work of the network including identifying synergies.

Women’s leadership for effective solution in nature through local food systems: Cristina Eghenter, WWF-Indonesia

Cristina Eghenter works at WWF-Indonesia on Social Development, Indigenous Peoples governance and Local Food Systems. An anthropologist, Cristina has been advocating for recognition of Indigenous Peoples rights and shared governance in protected areas. In her close to 20 years with WWF, she has championed and been active in various grass-root initiatives at local, national, and global levels, and played a pivotal role in efforts aimed at empowering communities and improving governance and equity of natural resources by integrating and strengthening human rights and gender equality in conservation initiatives.

Rights and Nature based Solutions for a Thriving Earth : Claudia Iturate-Lima, Visiting Research Associate, University of British Columbia

Claudia Iturate-Lima (PhD University College London and MPhil University of Cambridge). For twenty years, she has specialized in  human rights and environment  ( biodiversity and climate law)  in theory and practice. As an international public lawyer and scholar, her focus is on environmental justice and the transformation of international law into new governance forms at the national scale that support healthy ecosystems and people’s wellbeing. Her methodology ranges from case studies in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa, to research examining the interactions of international regimes.

Gender considerations in the CBD’s Post2020 Global Biodiversity Framework : Tanya McGregor, Gender Programme Officer, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

As the Gender Programme Officer at the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Tanya has been working to strengthen the focus on gender in work to implement the Convention, particularly for the post-2020 period.  She has a background in international development and environmental science, and began her career as a student field biologist exploring the wilds of Ontario and thereafter Saskatchewan and Hawaii.  Tanya worked with the IUCN in South Africa in supporting the development of sustainable natural resource management enterprises in multiple countries in Southern Africa, following which she joined the former Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), where she worked in a variety of programming and policy roles related to natural resources management, food security, maternal and child health, and climate change, among others.