Environment and Sustainable Development Initiatives
SEMARNAT's Gender Equity director visits Center
Recently, Biologist Itza Castañeda, Director of Gender Equity for the Social Participation and Transparency Unit of SEMARNAT visited several key cities in the United States as part of the State Department's International Visitor Program. The International Visitors Council of San Diego coordinated her visit to San Diego as part of its mission to promote global understanding through person-to-person professional, cultural, and educational exchange opportunities with distinguished international visitors.
In early August of 2003, the Center’s Environment and Sustainable Program convened a working luncheon in which interested environmental researchers and non-governmental organizations shared with Biól. Castañeda issues related to gender equity and the environment in the border region. In particular, our visitor was interested in speaking with local experts on issues related to gender equity and water resources.
Joining Program Director Jane Clough-Riquelme were: Dolores Maria Wesson and Jane Weinzierl of the California Sea Grant Program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Conner Everts with the Southern California Watershed Alliance; Luz Néreida Pérez-Prado, Environmental Fellow; Carmen Maganda, Environmental Fellow; and Suzanne Michel, Former Environmental Research Fellow.
Biól. Castañeda has been working with several state delegations and branches of the SEMARNAT to promote equitable participation of women and men in environmental activities, and to strengthen the participation of local communities and social organizations in the preservation, restoration and sustainable use of natural resources. She has been an active environmentalist, researcher, teacher and adviser who has promoted public policies for sustainable development stressing women's participation in programs designed for men such as the protection of forested areas and fishery activities in costal zones. Biól. Castañeda has promoted the concept of gender equity and the environment from the south of Mexico through Central America, as an environmental advisor of the regional office for Meso-America of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
SEMARNAT is aware of the existing differences and inequalities between men and women in relation to the access, control, use, and benefits of natural resources, as well as in the opportunity to make decisions and in the responsibility in relation to environmental conservation. For that reason, SEMARNAT created the Gender Equity unit within its Coordination Unit for Civic Participation and Transparency.
The objective of the Gender Equity, Environment, and Sustainability Program which Biól. Castañeda directs is to incorporate a gender perspective across environmental policies by means of expanding and consolidating public participation mechanisms which promote equity between men and women in relation to access, use, management, and sustainable exploitation of natural resources.
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