They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. Then, in the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, the Beijing Platform for Action affirmed that sustainable development would remain elusive unless women's role in environmental management was recognized and supported through greater attention to women's needs and greater women's involvement in decision-making.
Women are often the first affected by environmental pollutants and scarcity.
They are key to protecting the planet and reversing the unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, particularly in the industrialized world, that contribute most to environmental degradation. Women still have the main responsibility for meeting household needs and are therefore a major force in determining consumption trends. As such, women have an essential role to play in the development of sustainable and ecologically sound consumption and production patterns. However, they remain largely absent from environmental policymaking bodies and are rarely trained as professional resource managers. Involve women, including indigenous women, actively in environmental decision-making at all levels, as managers, designers, planners, and implementers of environmental projects.