Woman fights back with civil disobedience against logging, new policies needed

This case of civil disobedience demonstrates the desperation of many women confronted with the possibility of losing access to their forest resources:

"Due to lush and abundant natural resources, Ghana has been severely exploited. In ten years (1990 to 2000), Ghana lost 16% of its forest cover to logging. Women are at risk particularly because they simply are discriminated against and lack recognition. Ama Ntowaa, a 56-year‐old widow who supports six children on a small cocoa farm in Western Ghana, lay down in front of a bulldozer to stop a logging company that was intent on hauling away her trees, even though her Area Chief made a deal with the companies without consulting her. She did lose about a third of her land before she could stop them, all for the profit of the logging company and the unscrupulous chief.

"Another important debate concerns lack of participation by women in the design and implementation of forestry projects. There is a dearth of appropriate forestry institutions in West African countries are male‐dominated. There has however been some criticisms of the way in which attempts to institutionalize women's participation have led to the tendency to apply standardized gender frameworks.

"Government policy on forests should emphasize the need for rural women education on how to practice afforestation and agroforestry in order to improve and maintain their farmland including soil fertility, which could be promoted via seminars and extension training."

Implications

Civil disobedience of this sort mirrors what we saw in California's struggles between forest activists such as Julia Butterfly Hill and logging companies. Hill sat high up in the crown of an old-growth redwood tree for 738 days to stop it from being logged, and her efforts were part of a larger tree-sitting movement that spanned large parts of the country. Such large-scale civil disobedience is likely to increase if traditional land rights are disrespected and forests are unjustly destroyed as in this case.