Introduction

In Mexico, the normative framework related to forest management is particularly found in the Ley de Desarrollo Forestal Sustentable (LDFS) and its regulation, which regulates and defines it (Article 7, XVIII) as the set of actions and procedures for management, cultivation, protection, conservation, restoration and use of environmental resources and services of a forest ecosystem, respecting its functionality and interdependence and without diminishing the productive capacity of ecosystems and resources (^{DOF, 2015}). Of all the actions that are in charge of forest management, this article will focus on two, conservation and exploitation.

The first one is understood as the maintenance of the conditions that favor the persistence and evolution of a natural or induced forest ecosystem, without degradation or loss of its functions and the second, the forest exploitation refers to the extraction of timber and non -timber forest resources of the environment (^{DOF, 2015}). It is important to take the definitions of the LDFS and to assume them as “official”, because this Law establishes the guidelines and instruments of the forest use as the management program, which is nothing more than a technical -scientific document (backed by silvicultural techniques) for the planning and monitoring of sustainable forest management.

Forest management is based on forestry techniques and procedures as the main management scheme for forest resources, usually focusing on timber species of commercial interest, leaving aside forest components. This forestry is “scientific” because it relies on technical and scientific information that reflects the available resources of the forest in individual parts (^{Agarwal, 2004}; ^{García, 2012}). In this sense, the forest management promotes the cultivation of a forest species, above the diversity of the forest. The Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas notes that not all protected natural areas have a management plan, which makes it difficult to preserve and manage the natural resources found there (^{CONANP, 2013}).

This effect is due to the “biologist” approach that reduces the perception of the forest (and its resources) as isolated elements without taking into account the social, economic, cultural and political characteristics related to the inhabitants (female and male users) of the forest (^{Agarwal, 2004}; ^{Toledo, 2005}). Much less attention is paid to the differentiated relationship that women and men establish with the forest and its resources, evidenced by ^{Vázquez and Muñoz (2012)}, mention that men and women possess differentiated knowledge of forest resources, which are derived mainly of the generic division of labor, conceived as a social construction, which allows a specific use and management of resources. ^{Rodríguez et al. (2010)} found in Santa Catarina del Monte, Texcoco, that access to forest resources are also differentiated: the production of ornamental and composting, is a male domain; while medicinal plants, firewood and fungi are women’s activities and products. However, both are involved in the collection and use of plants that serve as artisan and religious material.

There are expressions differentiated by men and women in a given society and its relationship with the environment, this interaction ^{Aguilar et al. (2002)} is called gender relations “[...] and are based on the way in which a culture and a certain society understand what it means to be a man or to be a woman. These relationships permeate all dimensions of daily life [...]. Women and men use resources and express themselves about their environment in different ways; [...] based on norms, practices, symbols and values elaborated and molded socially”. ^{Rojas et al. (2014)} recomend not to lose sight of the historical nature of the relations between society and the environment, because they are influenced by important cultural and symbolic constructions in the structures of control and defense of natural resources and in the allocation of benefits and obligations towards them.

Since the 1990s, the issue of women and men has begun to open a gap in Mexican public institutions (understanding institutions as the administrative and operational staff of government agencies linked to the environmental sector and specific public policies), in 1998 Comisión Nacional de la Mujer (CONMUJER) is stablished in response to the international rise of the issue (after the Rio Summit, 1992 and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995) (^{Pliego, 2002}) so it began to be an issue in public institutions to date. At present, in the current term (2012-2018), the Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2013-2018 (PND), related to forest management.

Materials and methods

The research was carried out in 2014, in two communities: Corazón del Valle (CV) and Niños Héroes (NH) in the municipality of Cintalapa, Chiapas, within the buffer zone of REBISE (Figure 1). Corazón del Valle is an ejido with an area of 588.15 ha, made up of 133 inhabitants, of which 51% are men and 49% are women (^{INEGI, 2010}; ^{Molina and Rodríguez, 2012}).Whereas Niños Héroes is a co-ownership of 2 540 hectares formed by 104 inhabitants, 51% men and 49% women (^{INEGI, 2010}).

Figure 1 Geographic location of study communities. 

The CV ejido has a warm subhumid climate with summer rains (Aw(w)ig) with annual mean temperature of 24.2 °C and annual rainfall between 1 500 and 2 000 mm. The NH co-ownership has a humid semi-warm climate ((A)C(w2)) with annual average temperature of 18 °C and annual rainfall of 977 mm (^{Rosales, 2000}). The terrain is slightly uneven in CV with slopes up to 35% and more pronounced in NH, up to 86%. The vocation of both communities is forestry, most of it is covered with pine-oak forest. In the forest, extensive livestock farming and self-consumption agriculture are carried out, considered by ^{INEGI (2010)} as highly marginalized communities.

A mixed methodology was used, with qualitative and quantitative techniques such as semi-structured interviews with key actors, group interviews, participatory workshops and a survey. There were eight interviews with key actors, five with representation in the community: the president of the Ejidal Commissariat and the representative of the co-ownership, the President of the Supervisory Board and two Municipal Agents, two inhabitants-founders of each community and one official public of the REBISE.

Identification of the key actors and the information they provided was made for the purpose of obtaining information from communities and the participation of women in the community and in public forest- related projects. With the staff of the reserve, the purpose was to know the projects promoted by public institutions and how the inclusion of women in them is perceived.

From the group interviews and participatory workshops, two were carried out in each community in a differentiated way; that is, one for women and one for men working on the same themes, the group interviews were with eight women and six men from Niños Héroes and workshops with 11 women and 14 men in Corazón del Valle, respectively.

A survey was applied to 20 women and 15 men in Corazón del Valle and 13 women and 13 men in Niños Héroes, corresponding to 26% of the total population registered by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática (INEGI). The questionnaire consisted of 85 questions covering: agricultural and livestock activities, RFM and RFNM uses, management activities and socio-environmental issues.

Two types of variables were determined. The first describes the gender relations through access and use of forest resources in rural communities and the second describes the relationships that public institutions establish with women and men and how these relationships make access for women and men in the projects that have been carried out in the communities.

Results and discussion

The communities under study have performed formal forest management practices, because of their location in the buffer zone of the REBISE and forest fire risk zone (first place of ANP from 1997 to 2008), firebreaks are the main preventive strategy. In CV it is a joint effort between residents and public institutions that implemented a community program of integral fire management (PCMIF), as a result, the ejido has managed to virtually eradicate forest fires and integrated a brigade organized, trained and equipped to fight forestry fires. In the ejido, women and men have been organized and established through the ejidal assembly the individual work that corresponds to them “task of 480 meters”. One of the ejidatarios highlighted the importance of fire breaks as a preventive measure for fire control, saying: “Whether or not we have support, we have to do it, but to protect, the fire from entering” (Municipal Agent, personal communication, 2014).

Management programs for forest use are a latent issue in these communities, none of which has been implemented. In 2007 CV had approved a management program for forestry (by SEMARNAT); nevertheless, the ejidal assembly decided to prioritize the program of environmental services (PSA), modality protection of biodiversity. The latter is an international economic instrument designed for conservation through alternatives based on science and technology in the same sense as the forest conservation proposed by the LDFS. This conservation model focuses on the maintenance of the “good state” of the forest, conceiving it isolated from the variables that are interrelated with the forest. ^{Toledo (2005)} calls this model “biologist and reductionist”.

Although, it does not propose management techniques of scientific forestry, it takes maintenance methods like the firebreaks, technique commonly used by the PSA. Moreover, the formal management to be held in the medium term will be the establishment of a sawmill to transform Pinus oocarpa (main timber forest resource) so that the ejidatarios can establish themselves as an ejido forestry company. Specialized forest management, forest sanitation techniques includes a measurement protocol and inputs such as the use of pesticides to control and combat pine -oak forest pest (Dendroctonus frontalis) in Corazón del Valle.

Niños Héroes, has intervened its forest only with reforestation programs, although it plans to take advantage of the forest through a management program, it is an incipient community on the subject of forest management, it is in the process of valuing its resources. This difference is associated with the possession of land, in the case of CV the regularity of land was granted in response to the management of the inhabitants since the constitution of the ejido in 1983, which has influenced the owners to manage the forest resources.

Meanwhile NH is a legally recognized co-ownership in 2008, made up of 180 female and male co-owners, the security of the statutory rights determines the perception and value-use (reference to value-use to emphasize the perception and use that the owner-inhabitants have of their resources in the forest and to differentiate it from the commercial value that the public institutions reinforce) of the forest and its resources, reflected in the following testimony of a key actor: “What could I take care of if I did not own it” (Gustavo, community representative, personal communication, 2014).

The uncertainty of the right to land limited community access to the formal structure of forest management, the REBISE temporarily inserts male and female co-owners through temporary employment for fire prevention, in this point the public institutions (REBISE-CONAFOR) select the areas for fire breaks according to their goals without consulting female and male co-owners.

The State as a regulator of the forests use, at the same time, as the engine of the initiatives of forest management, influences the selection of species relating their value in the market, without taking into account the diversity of the forest and interdependence of the resources in the ecosystem (taking back part of the “official” definition of forest use, nor does it contemplate the value-use of species used primarily by women). About it ^{Pinkus et al. (2014)} state that resource management plans in protected natural areas could be paradigms between conservation, the use of resources in a sustainable manner and the development of the populations immersed within them, and conclude that management plans can be functional if the participation of the communities in the conservation and management of the natural resources of the natural protected areas is promoted; maintaining ecological processes and biological diversity; the ecosystems of these protected areas that are altered and the operational capacities that serve to protect the natural resources by means of actions to reduce its misuse are restored, establishing an effective surveillance system.

REBISE has promoted projects aimed at women such as vegetable gardens, establishing communal or individual farms for the rearing of backyard animals such as chickens, lambs and pigs; and the construction of wood-saving burning stoves. It is clear that the State has promoted differentiated programs; however, they only accentuate gender gaps and reaffirm traditional gender relations, including spaces. Especially because women are excluded from projects related to the use of timber forest species and harvesting programs such as the sawmill, in the case of Corazón del Valle.

Thus, the PSA and PCMIF, instead of actively including them, they are marginalized into secondary or supportive activities, because the institutional vision conceives that women do not have the capacity based on the physical effort required by field activities. However, in one of the participatory workshops a participant affirms based on her experience that women work alongside with their counterparts, but not in the same value of importance, since their work is perceived as help: “I worked a lot in the field also when I was single, I helped a lot [my dad] we cultivated maize with the cultivator, so two cultivators in the same join... what he did, I did” (Zenaida participatory workshop, 2014).

Women occasionally participate directly in the forest in activities such as reforestation. In Corazón del Valle, 35% of the surveyed women do not consider that they participate in the projects, except for two women who, due to the absence of a spouse (one without land ownership) reforested in the forest along with the male ejidatarios. One way of participation is through training. Some access training spaces with themes related to the forest, as long as they are ejidatarias. In Niños Heroes, 53.8% of the women surveyed received a wood-burning stove, a passive project indirectly related to the forest and its traditional gender role; however, 46.2% participated in reforestation.

Women are less likely to have access to forest-related training, with 53.8% receiving some training, although most of them are related to their gender responsibilities (from the Oportunidades Program of the Secretaría de Desarrollo Social). Women without land ownership are significantly less likely to have non- formal training; that is, the majority of women in the study communities.

In the sawmill it is planned that the women participate in the administrative activities and making wood handicrafts with the wood residues and in the reforestation project that was being carried out in NH during the field work, the women were contracted in the nursery to fill bags with substrate, sowing and transplanting Pinus oocarpa seedlings. What reflects that in the institutional imaginary these activities are perceived as a work that requires delicacy and it is assumed that women are apt to perform it. In addition, the participation of women does not influence in any way the selection of species or the decision making, in the same sense that ^{Agarwal (2004)} reports. That is, women are considered in “auxiliary and marginal” activities (^{Rocheleau et al., 2004}). Also the institutional imaginary reflects the utilitarian perception of women without an inclusive vision or gender perspective, across-cutting theme of environmental public policy, a key actor says it: “If we are ok with men, we have to also be ok with them because we are going to need them too... ... we started with them...” (Jose, REBISE personal communication, 2014).

The sawmill design aims to generate jobs in the Corazón del Valle ejido and face the migration. These jobs will benefit families, especially men, since in most cases, they are the heads of households, therefore they will lead the activities of forest and sawmill management, marginalizing women in minor activities in the nursery and those related to reproductive activities in the home. In both communities, it is believed that women participate in some way in the forest through the elaboration of lunch, as it is conceived as a responsibility assigned to women. A key player reflects the imaginary of the men of the community: “...when you go to work in the field, their work, their obligation is to pack lunch, the round (tortilla) for the peasants...” (Municipal Agent, personal communication, 2014).

In the study communities, land rights are concentrated in men, although in CV, 30% of the ejidatarios group are women, it is important to clarify that none of them assumed ownership of the land since the formation of ejido, if it does not obey the patrilineal scheme (by absence or death of the titular male). The ejidatarias accede to the ejidal assembly; however, they do not work directly in the forest as their counterparts, at work and in the ejidal assembly they are represented by a male (spouse, son or day laborer), the assembly is a space run by men and for men (taking into account that the majority) fully exercise their voice and vote.

On the other hand, the ejidatarias, although they exercise their statutory rights, in practice they vanish and their abilities and the inclusion of their needs are not considered. Probably because the benefits of its effective inclusion are unknown. ^{Mwangi et al. (2011)} report that when women were included in forest-related decision-making, they influenced the regulation of illegal activities, conflict management capacity, and diversification of forest use.

The interests of women are not represented in the projects found in the field, promoted by public institutions, proof of this is that of projects for women, none is working, except wood-saving-burning stoves. The fracture of these programs is partly related to the male bias in attitudes that promote community forestry initiatives (^{ABC, 2012}), the absence of women experts in gender at the different levels without structural barriers would facilitate and improve their impact on differentiated initiatives. For example, it was found that the operational staff of the REBISE is composed of men, except a technician that was temporarily contracted for the area of environmental education; that is, she performs few activities related to the management and use of the forest.

Figure 2 shows the elements and actors that interact in the formal management of the forest. The administrative structure made up of public institutions such as the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT), the Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP) and the Comisión Nacional Forestal (CONAFOR), which are responsible for directing economic activities base don the environment through strategies established in the Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND), a maximum planning instrument, to which the Plan Nacional Forestal (PNF) and PNANP should be aligned. One of the cross-cutting strategies is the gender perspective, which should be reflected in local programs and projects because of its mandatory nature. In reality, the gender perspective is absent, since none of the dimensions of gender, age, marital status, land tenure, religion, poverty in the programs and projects, or the language of the actors were found.

Figure 2 Interrelated elements found in the analysis of gender relations and public institutions. 

Conclusions

The traditional perception that public institutions have of women is reflected in the programs and projects directed at women. It is clear that the problem is structural, from the gender concept, since this is not understood by any public institution, worse than the gender perspective mentioned in the PND is only enunciative, the consequence is the profound difficulty of integrating women in programs, rather than excluding them and marginalizing them.

The benefits that could be gained from integrating women into public and community activities and programs, from design to implementation and follow-up, are not known. In the programs analyzed: wood-burning stoves, food and backyard animals, PSA, PCMIF, firebreaks, sawmills, forestry and forest sanitation reinforces the traditional division of labor based on sexual difference and fosters the specialization of concomitance and skills by gender (which in practice could become a strength).

There was also no political will to incorporate the gender dimension (except to cover the quota of programs aimed at women and to obtain quick results), much less to improve the marginal conditions that women live in relation to the management of forest resources.

There is a lack of administrative and operative personnel specialized in gender issues, so the possibilities of including the needs and interests of women are nullified.

The gender dimension makes it possible to make visible the disadvantaged conditions and barriers faced by women in both communities, which at the same time reflect the reality of many rural women. Its analysis necessarily involves understanding that gender relations respond to social mandates de facto of each society (therefore they change from one to another) and include categories such as marital status (married, cohabitation, single, widowed), responsibilities in the activities (productive and reproductive), age, land rights, religion and poverty, among others.

Women’s restricted access to training spaces severely limits women’s ability to develop or strengthen their agency skills and abilities, which could remove sociocultural barriers that exclude them from their forest-related interest activities.