Within most societies there has been a division of labour and responsibilities based on gender.  Traditionally, it has been women who take care of the basic resources needed to sustain the family unit.  As such, it has become crucial to understand what dynamic gender plays in the whole question of environment and sustainable development.  In the book, Gender, Environment and Development: a guide to the literature, Heelen van den Hombergh has collected a wide range of works touching on various aspects of this topic. 

In the introduction, she emphasizes that it is better to focus on gender issues rather than just women.  Previously, the main thrust of work in this area has been on “Women and Development” or Women and Environment”.  However, it is not only a question of men or women but the structures within society which determine various roles, knowledge, and relationships both to the environment and to each other which have a bearing on how the development process is conceived and implemented.   

Hombergh has found that there are three interrelated factors that are crucial for understanding Gender, Environment and Development.  They are: sexual division of labour, the “feminization of poverty” and gender ideology.  By focusing on these issues, we can come to a better understanding of the power issues inherent in questions of gender.  Hombergh suggests that it has been this dimension of power that has led to the Western development model which has been so detrimental to both women and the environment.  She also finds that focusing only on women’s issues can sometimes be unhelpful as the interests of women in different places, particularly between North and South, can sometimes be at odds.  This book will prove useful to those seeking a starting point form which they can delve into the various issues within Gender, Environment and Development. 
 

* * * * * * * * * *

Environment Limits to Motrisation: Non-motorised Transport in Developed and Developing Countries
by Urs Heierli, SKAT, Swiss Centre for Development Cooperation in Technology and Management; 1993, price not mentioned. 

City traffic has come to a standstill, the air is becoming increasingly unbreathable and every where you look it is cars and more cars.  The growth of motorised vehicles in large cities has become not only a nuisance but a major environmental threat.  Urs Heierli’s book, Environmental Limits to Motorisation: Non-motorised Transport in Developed and Developing Countries, explores the problems and possible solutions to our increasingly choked and fuming byways.   

Heierli claims that motorised transport contributes more to global warming through emissions of greenhouse gases than deforestation.  In Mexico City, ozone levels have risen to such a level due to its 3 million cars that it is virtually forced to shut down periodically.  Additionally, traffic has become such a problem in urban centres that the speed and freedom which motorised transport promises hardly realized.   

This book sees increasing bicycle use as the primary solution to these problems.  Heierli states that in urban centres the majority of trips made are for short distances of less than 5 to 10 km, a distance easily covered by bicycle.  It has been tested that for such short trips a bicycle is actually faster than a car or motorbike.  Additionally, bicycles take up much less space on the road per person than other motorised means.  However, there are a number of factors which must be addressed in order to increase bicycle transport.  First, government policy and city planning must be “bicycle friendly”/  this means adequate bike lanes, bringing the cost of bicycles down by easing import duties and encouraging local production, particularly in developing countries, and discouraging motorised traffic.   

The second factor has been the relatively low status associated with bicycle transport as the mode of the poor.  In many third world countries, buying a car or motorbike has become a great status symbol.  The middle class has come to see a car or motorbike as a hard earned right of social mobility.   

Heerli’s book, based on his travels around the world and research in India and Bangladesh, goes a long way towards dispelling a theoretical,utopian perspective by providing down to earth practical policy suggestions for slowing the tend towards increasing motorised transport.   q 
 

Back to Contents