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In the great majority of cases, women become involved in environmental issues because of their social roles: as sustainers of families, it is often women who first notice environmental degradation. Many grassroots women activists report that their role as mothers and family caretakers is the key catalyst in their concern for protecting the environment. (Seager 1993, 271).
   
   The term ‘ecofeminism’ was coined by French feminist Francois d’Eaubonne in 1974. This concept is an environmental movement with cultural and social concerns and deals with the relationship that the oppression of women have with the degradation of nature. It is a feminist approach to environment ethics. It sprouted in the early 70’s as Western women became disillusioned with ideologies and took notice that the environment movement lacked a feminist analysis.
   Ecofeminists are often perceived as environmentally oriented women who are feminists, or vice versa. But it is simply not a subset of feminism, or ecology. It is an entity which stands on its own. The primary aims of eco-feminism are not the same associated with liberal feminism. Rather than seeking equality with men, women want to be emancipated as women and through recognition of values that are typically inherent of women such as childbirth, nurturing, performing their responsibilities in the domestic arena. Relevant to state that in performing their duties they take better care of the environment and its resources.
   In societies where women are treated as inferior to men, more often than not, nature is also treated as lesser to culture, and humans are thought to be separate entities from nature. Hence, the differences arise. From the ecofeminist viewpoint it’s not only women who are viewed as ‘closer to nature’, but also the oppressed races and social classes. Ecofeminism takes a kaleidoscopic view of the environment and moves to change all kinds of subjugation, challenging and committing to eradicate racism, classism, imperialism, anthropocentrism and speciesm; all these factors are said to be influences which degrade the environment.
   Oppression of women, and the environment was twin subordinations, which rose some 5,000 years ago with the emergence of Western patriarchy. Patriarchy was based on ‘dualism’, a concept which separates the body from the mind, male from females, humans from nature. By forcefully dividing these entities into two, a power imbalance is created, giving rise to the abstract ‘other’ which is then discriminated against. The belief also places more importance on linear, mechanistic and analytical thinking, rather than emotional, earthy qualities which are perceived as passive and weak, and essentially ‘female’.
   And so rose the concept of ecofeminism. One of the main reasons for its success is that it aims to connect politics with spiritualism. These divergent sectors have never been connected before, giving ecofeminism a fresh, interdisciplinary approach.
   A few inspiring movements of ecofeminism include:
   Wangari Maathai’s formation of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya in which rural women planted trees as part of a soil conservation effort to avert desertification of their land; Mohawk women along the St. Lawrence River who established the Akwesasne Mother’s Milk Project to monitor PCB toxicity while continuing to promote breastfeeding as a primary option for women and their babies; Bernadette Cozart, a gardener and founder of the Greening of Harlem, who organizes diverse community groups in Harlem to transform vacant garbage-strewn lots into food and flower gardens; Artist Helene Aylon’s Sister Rivers performance ritual in which Japanese women placed rice, seeds, and soil from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in pillowcases and then floated the artwork down the Kama River; Lois Gibbs’ exposure of Love Canal as a toxic waste site, and her founding of the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste to share tactical skills with local environmental groups.

The accord requires countries to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
   Some 141 countries, accounting for 55% of greenhouse gas emissions, have ratified the treaty, which pledges to cut these emissions by 5.2% by 2012.
   But the world’s top polluter - the US - has not signed up to the treaty.
   The US says the changes would be too costly to introduce and that the agreement is flawed.
   Large developing countries including India, China and Brazil are not required to meet specific targets for now.
   
   ‘Out of control’
   The ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto, where the pact was negotiated, is hosting the main ceremony marking the treaty’s coming into force.
   Russia ratified the treaty in November 2004 - the crucial moment making the treaty legally binding.
   Russia’s entry was vital, because the protocol had to be ratified by nations accounting for at least 55% of greenhouse gas emissions to become valid.
   This target was only met after Russia joined.
   But the head of the UN Environment Programme, Klaus Toepfer, said Kyoto was only a first step and much hard work needed to be done to fight global warming.
   “Climate change is the spectre at the feast, capable of undermining our attempts to deliver a healthier, fairer and more resilient world,” he said.
   Recent projections on planet warming made terrifying reading, he said, painting a vision of a planet that is “spinning out of control.”
   He said it would be Africa which bore the burden of the world’s failure to act.
   
   Individual targets
   The protocol, which became legally binding at midnight New York time (0500 GMT) on 16 February, demands a 5.2% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from the industrialised world as a whole, by 2012.
   Each country has been set its own individual targets according to its pollution levels.
   Growing developing countries China and India are outside the framework, a fact pointed out by US President George W Bush when he abandoned Kyoto as one of his first acts when taking office in 2001.
   Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi issued a statement welcoming the treaty but also calling on non-signatories to rethink.
   “From now, we have to build a system in which more nations will work together under the common framework to stop global warming,” he said.
   Environmentalists held protests around the world to mark the treaty coming into force - with many targeting the US.
   Speakers at the official ceremony include Nobel Peace prize winner Wangari Maathai.
   Ms Maathai, an ecologist and Kenya’s deputy environment minister, said the Kyoto Protocol would require not just efforts from governments and businesses, but also a change in the way people lived.
   
   Tough goals
   But even for countries that have signed up to Kyoto, meeting the goals could be difficult.
   Canada, one of the treaty’s first signatories, has no clear plan for reaching its target emission cuts. Far from cutting back, its emissions have increased by 20% since 1990.
   And Japan is also unsure it will be able to meet its legal requirement to slash emissions by 6% from 1990 levels by 2012.
   “Japan will make all efforts to respect the rules of the Protocol,” said Takashi Omura, of the Japanese environment ministry. “It will neither be easy nor insurmountable.”
   — BBC Online