Chizami, March 6 (MExN): On International Women’s Day 2016, North East Network (NEN) will celebrate the courage and resilience of rural women who have ensured the wellbeing of their communities and environment at Chizami in Phek district. The day will be an occasion to make visible women’s contribution, build support for their recognition as the primary stakeholders in conservation of biodiversity, and also reflect on the challenges and build collective strategies towards ecological and gender just society, stated a concept note from NEN.
International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 every year. This year’s theme is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”.
Meanwhile, on March 9, NEN is organizing a Biodiversity Festival to celebrate the rich agro-biodiversity at Chizami. The festival will bring together diverse stakeholders to build understanding and awareness about ecological agriculture, enable learning exchange, strengthen solidarity, and influence policy support for agro-biodiversity conservation. The festival also hopes to enable communities to collectively re-examine, reflect and build strategies to embrace a vision of sustainability, NEN stated.
The concept note highlighted that North East Region (NER) of India is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots and diverse ethnic communities of the region have significantly contributed towards sustaining this biodiversity. “However, NER’s fragile ecosystem today is under threat owing to biodiversity destruction, commercial logging, rampant hunting, invasive technologies and extractive development practices.” This, it said, has made the region highly vulnerable to climate change, social unrest, food and nutritional insecurities, shrinking livelihoods and environment induced migration within and outside the region which increases the vulnerabilities of women within diverse intersections.
In addition, due to neoliberal policies, rapid changes in the agrarian communities have been observed, the note said. “Cash driven economy is drastically replacing subsistence economy which has sustained the livelihoods of agrarian communities. Government policy support for ecological agricultural practices is negligible. Farmers are steadily moving from a collective farming context to an individualized one that lay emphasis on profit maximization. This shift is gradually alienating communities’ intrinsic relationship with their commons – forest, land, seeds, biodiversity, water, traditional knowledge, and culture.” Stating that such alienation from the common natural resources would adversely affect community cohesion and particularly rural women’s livelihoods, NEN said, it is crucial to collectively address shared practices of community resilience, reorganizing and regeneration based on solidarity and sustainability.
In the context of Nagaland, the note said, farmers, particularly women have been playing a significant role in the conservation of genetic agro-biodiversity through traditional forest based agricultural practices, terrace agriculture, homestead gardening, seed saving and sharing. However, women farmers remain invisible in their identity as farmers as well as recognition of their contribution to ecological agriculture and biodiversity conservation. “Women in Nagaland continue to struggle for equal recognition, inclusion and participation in political, social, cultural and economic spheres,” it stated. “Nevertheless, stories of positive change are also emerging in several places owing to women’s consistent effort.” In some villages of Phek district, it said, wage parity and inclusion of women in Village Councils have become a reality. “Achievements such as this were possible also because of men’s equal support and women stepping up to face challenges and accepting change,” it added.
