||One might expect an entry titled “Significant Women in
Forestry” to be quite short, because few women have been
particularly significant in professional forestry. Histories of
forestry have paid little attention to women, for women have
rarely worked as foresters, loggers, or CEOs of industrial
forestry operations. Forestry has traditionally been one of the
most ‘manly’ of professions, and until quite recently, many
forestry schools and forestry positions were open only to men.
Protestations that the physical nature of the work precluded
women from forestry persisted long after such arguments dwindled
in other professions (Wazeka 1984). In the last three decades,
more women have entered forestry schools and employment, yet
concerns about women and forestry run much deeper than a simple
question of career opportunities. Forests have been of
fundamental economic importance to the lives of women throughout
history, and they continue to be so, particularly in developing
nations. Yet professional forestry has al