"Women still need courage and determination to occupy traditionally male spaces” was how Embrapa Amapá researcher Ana Margarida Euler began her lecture in a session entitled "Women and Forests: promoting gender equality connecting research, public policies, and forest management in the tropics," which was held on Tuesday, October 1 in the main auditorium of the 25th IUFRO Word Congress. Euler emphasized the importance of women's participation in forest governance. She cited her own experience as manager of the Amapá State Forest Institute and work by women in forestry within the Verde para Sempre Extractive Reserve. Forest management had mostly been carried out by men until women decided to take over. "We are still few in number, we need more, to inspire other women to face this challenge," she said. A reference among female leaders in the reserve is Maria Margarida da Silva, an extractivist and manager of the Arimum River Mixed Cooperative in Porto de Moz (Pará). She has already been recognized internationally for her struggle to protect community life and for sustainable forest management, as well as her strong contributions to public policies for sustainable forest management in the Amazon. Another viewpoint was presented by Jane Kiragu, professor of forest engineering at the University of Eldoret, Kenya. She said that the number of Kenyan women pursuing professional qualification in forest management continues to dwindle; only two of the 14 students in the course are women. "We are seeing that women are looking for more comfortable professions that take place in urban areas and require less manual labor," she said. Another issue she raised is that girls do not study disciplines related to science during their training for university. Kiragu believes that this perception needs to change; the few women who do work in forest-related areas do a quality job, and even stand out among their male colleagues. Public policies for the forestry sector need to benefit and value the role of women in relation to land rights and gender equality, underscored anthropologist Purabi Bose as she described the reality of women and their history in biodiversity conservation in traditional communities in India, Uganda, and Latin America. "We need active women participating in training with a focus on female entrepreneurship to make them increasingly independent," Bose said. Margarida Silva closed the session with a song: “to manage you’ve got to empower yourself.... to manage you’ve got to swing....”