Gender and trees in Péni, South-Western Burkina Faso. Women's needs, strategies and challenges

Abstract

Geografisk Tidsskrift, Danish Journal of Geography 105(1):67–76, 2005This article describes and explains the different interests and strategies that men and women have in tree management in Péni, southwestern Burkina Faso. It argues that men and women have different household responsibilities. While the responsibility of the men is to procure staple food, housing, clothes, medicines and administration fees, women are responsible for finding the ingredients of the sauce accompanying meals and to take care of the children and the daily domestic tasks. As a result, the women s interest in trees focuses on their use-value for the household, while men have a stronger interest in their commercial value. Consequently, women tend to rely heavily on the existence of communally owned resources that can be gathered by every one, while men prefer “privatised” resources. The social marginalisation of women makes it more difficult for them to manage tree resources according to their own needs. Women are not completely powerless, as they have developed successful strategies to bypass some of the existing social and tenure constraints and defend their interests. However, new regional and global trends have put women s resources and strategies under pressure.