This publication presents personal accounts from across Africa of how environmental problems directly impact the lives of the rural poor and specifically the lives of women.

"The negative outcomes of the loss and/or degradation of natural resources often fall most heavily on women, adding to their responsibilities and multiple roles in families and communities," says Phil Franks, CARE’s poverty and environment advisor. "However, in many situations, women also hold the key to solving these problems and can bring environmental concerns to the attention of society in a powerful way."

In this publication, CARE demonstrates that the solutions to environmental problems are as much social and political as technical. In rising to this challenge women are learning new skills. More fundamentally, they are empowering themselves to have greater influence over decision-making in their society, the benefits of which go far beyond the environmental arena. Action must come from the entire community and must be backed by policy reform, but in many cases women are proving to be the primary agents of change, bringing environmental concerns to the attention of society in a unique and powerful way.

"When the rural environment becomes unsustainable, it's the women whose lives are most disrupted," says Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel laureate in 2004 and founder of the Green Belt Movement, in her foreword to the publication. "If we conserved better, conflict over land, water and forests would be far less. Protecting the global environment is directly related to securing peace."

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