Increased gender equity and equality certainly enhances participatory processes that are required to solve environmental, economic and social problems that threaten peace and human well-being in this new millennium. While it is not the panacea for these problems, it is a crucial element, since it opens the door to more creative; user-responsive, socially sustainable and fair solutions to them. Several studies have shown that improving women's education, income and status, as well as increasing their opportunities in the decisionmaking process, enhances their families' food security, health and well-being. It also has an impact on fertility reduction and long-term effects on the capacity of community organization to better respond to their environmental and social challenges.

Gender equity within participatory management of natural resources promotes a more equitable sharing of their costs and benefits. Besides making access and control of resources between men and women, and empowering women in decision making, women's traditional knowledge of biodiversity and ecosystem management can be recognized, valued and used to promote environmental sustainability. In this way, promoting gender equity and equality is a concrete step to enhance peace and human security in the search for more fair and harmonic relationships among people and with the environment.

IUCN welcomes the efforts made by the UN following the Fourth World Conference on Women to draw attention on the importance of promoting gender equity and equality to ensure social and environmental sustainability and security, while engaging a broad range of GOs and NGOs in this initiative.

IUCN - The World Conservation Union - was created in 1948. It is the world's largest conservation-related organization, bringing together 76 states, 11 government agencies, 732 NGOs, 36 affiliates, and some 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide partnership. For more than half a century IUCN has endeavored to shape a just world, that values and conserves nature. Its mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.

Concerns for social and gender equity has been a fundamental issues for IUCN, which understands that conservation is a process that requires changing social behavior at the individual and institutional levels. IUCN has promoted the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable use of natural resources since Caring for the Earth (1992), through several initiatives carried out at the policy and field levels, on a global, regional, national arid local basis.

Most recently, IUCN has adopted a Policy Statement on Mainstreaming Gender (1998) in which:

• IUCN recognizes that adopting a gender perspective means focusing on both men and women and their relationships with each other and natural resources. It means working with gender relations and the environment (differential roles and responsibilities, and different needs and visions of women and men), as well as achieving a better analysis of patterns of use, knowledge and skills regarding conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Only with a gender perspective can a complete picture of human relationships and human interaction with natural resources be built-up.
• IUCN's rationale for integrating a gender perspective and concerns is based on two important premises: first, the recognition that gender equality and equity are matters of fundamental human rights and social justice, and secondly, the growing awareness that equality -equal rights, opportunities and responsibilities for men and women - is a pre-condition for sustainable development and sustainable use of natural resources.

Also, this year, IUCN has adopted a Policy Statement on Social Equity within Conservation and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, which provides a philosophy and guiding criteria that integrate social equity within IUCN Program, policies and projects. Main issues addressed by this policy statement are: Tenure, access. and control of natural resources, gender, indigenous people and ethnicity, participatory management of natural resources, and poverty, globalization, overconsumption, population dynamics and environmental degradation.

Aware of our role and capacity, IUCN has developed tools and protocols to integrate gender within the field project cycle and within environmental policies. The Social Area of IUCN Office in Meso America (ORMA) has taken a clear leadership in this process. Since 1992, more than 2000 people have been trained in how to link environment and gender. Modules and research have been conducted in order to provide theoretical and practical skills in how to link equity and equality to sustainable development. Ministries of Environment have received support and collaboration in order to develop polices that integrate gender into their sectors. '

A collaboration between ORMA and the Global Social Policy Program is making our expertise and tools available to support similar processes in other regions where IUCN members are interested. The nine training modules of the series Towards Equity, produced by ORMA, are being published in English by SPPP-ORMA in June..

Other regional efforts in the form of networking and information sharing have been promoted in places like Asia, where members exchange gender information and experience in the IUCN Gender and Environment in Asia Newsletter.

Because of our experience and success in addressing gender equity and equality thus far, IUCN will be glad to support its members and partners who are committed to mainstreaming gender within national environmental policies and sustainable development initiatives, in addition to building the institutional capacity to carry out this process.