Dare to Explore! “GENDERING FSC: WHERE WE STAND AND WHERE WE WANT TO GO”

By Gargi Tariyal (India)

Hello to all the forestry students in the world! I am Gargi Tariyal, native of Western Himalayas in India. At present I am an early-stage researcher at the University of Eastern Finland. My research focuses on disturbance Ecology, with my niche in “Fire-vegetation interactions in the Fennoscandian Boreal forests”. I have two master’s degrees, former one in Environmental studies and resource management and the latter in European Forestry. I had also been a mentee at “Women in Forestry” program in Austria for one year which provided me deep insights about gender issues in forestry.

I have been a Dare to Explore! Trainee with Forest Stewardship Council (FSc) in Bonn, Germany from June 2021 to September 2021. I worked closely in developing the ‘Green Paper” for FSc regarding “Gender & Diversity” at FSc.  I went through all the gender and diversity records at FSc. With the literature review, I created a timeline about gender from the oldest existing records till present. I further found out the loopholes in the process by digging out all the details and amendments about gender and diversity at FSc. I then presented the outcomes in the form of recommendations about Gender and diversity at FSc.

It was a great learning experience for me. The program helped me in networking and to expand my knowledge about gender and diversity in forestry. I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to the Gender Task Force at FSc for their untiring help and support throughout the Traineeship. It has been lots of learning under the supervision of such eminent experts. The traineeship was online due to the pandemic guidelines, and I had weekly meetings with the Gender task force at FSc.

My favorite tree is “Cedrus Deodara”(Himalayan Cedar) native to the Himalayas.

Here is the snapshot of my work at FSc“Gendering FSc”