Land, Trees, and Women

Download or read book Land, Trees, and Women written by Maria Agnes R. Quisumbing and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do women's land rights change as customary tenure systems give way to individualized land tenure? While the individualization of land rights creates incentives for poor farmers in marginal areas to adopt agroforestry, not much is known about its impact on women's land rights. Land, Trees, and Women examines the evolution of customary land tenure institutions in areas of Western Ghana and Western Sumatra where traditional matrilineal inheritance systems have been changing. In these two areas, the authors find that individualization of land tenure has contributed to both increased gender equity and greater efficiency in agroforestry management. While property rights institutions are moving toward providing proper incentives for efficient natural resource management, the authors conclude that any program or legal framework that assigns rights to resources must be evaluated for barriers to women's participation.