Degradation of environmental resources and "grabbing" of these increasingly scarce assets by the rich and powerful are a fundamental obstacles to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and 2015 targets set by the United Nations. In a report entitled Reclaiming Rights and Resources released on the occasion of Earth Day this Sunday, CARE 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, Poverty and Environment Advisor with CARE International. "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."

Reclaiming Rights and Resources presents seven case studies from across Africa that focus on three types of threatened environmental resources: land, forests, and water. In each case women share their stories of how the loss or degradation of such critical resources has adversely affected their lives and what they are doing to address these problems.

There is the case of Ama Ntowaa, a Ghanaian woman who in 2004 lay down in front of a bulldozer to prevent the village chief who had struck a deal with a logging company from removing timber logs off her land. In Niger, 'barefoot lawyers' try to secure land for women in case of divorce and address the practice of seclusion of women as a result of land scarcity and the denial of property rights.

"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 forward 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."

Until recently, since the impact of climate change and its profound implications for humanity have become clearer, environmental concerns were often considered a preoccupation of wealthy countries. "Politicians are now waking up to the fact that addressing environmental problems is fundamental to the fight against poverty and a precondition to achieving social justice," says Franks.

To download the full report Reclaiming Rights and Resources visit www.care.org

To arrange interviews please contact: Bea M. Spadacini +254 (0) 725 22 10 36 in Nairobi, Kenya