Sanjana Lal, the acting permanent secretary for Fiji’s Ministry of Fisheries and Forestry, has urged a nationwide push for clarity on the difference between sex and gender, warning that a lack of shared understanding is undermining policy development in the blue carbon and fisheries sectors. Lal told reporters that progress on inclusive resource management and governance must start with a common definition and public understanding of gender versus biological sex.
“There is a real difference between using gender versus sex,” Lal said. “Sex is the biological characteristics of being male and female — these are things that we are born with — but this is not the same as gender.” She went on to describe gender as a social identity shaped by societal expectations and learned behaviours, noting that “society associates certain roles, certain responsibilities, entitlements, and behaviours with those identities.”
Lal warned that conflating social roles with biological differences breeds misconceptions that can distort policy. “If I make a statement that says, well, women are great multitaskers and men are very good at carpentry, I’m actually making statements about gender,” she said, illustrating how stereotypes about abilities and responsibilities can seep into planning and implementation.
The acting permanent secretary highlighted the practical consequences of such confusion for the ministry’s work. Without a shared conceptual framework, she said, policies and governance systems risk missing the real dynamics shaping access to fisheries resources, participation in blue carbon initiatives, and entitlement to benefits and protections. Improving understanding, Lal argued, is therefore essential to ensure policy measures are genuinely inclusive and reflective of societal realities.
Her comments add a public-facing policy emphasis on gender literacy at a time when Fiji has faced international scrutiny on human rights and equality issues. A recent United Nations review urged Fiji to address several human-rights challenges, including matters related to discrimination; Lal’s call for clarity on gender could be read as aligning national sectoral policy development with broader commitments to non-discrimination and inclusive governance.
Lal did not outline a detailed implementation plan in her remarks, but her focus points toward an emerging priority for the ministry: embedding clearer gender analysis into the design and delivery of fisheries and blue carbon programmes. That could involve revising data collection, altering stakeholder engagement practices, and training officials to distinguish between biological sex and socially constructed gender roles — steps advocates and development partners have long said are needed to make natural-resource governance more equitable.
As acting permanent secretary, Lal’s statements signal a leadership-level recognition within the ministry that conceptual confusion around gender is not only an academic debate but a practical barrier to effective policy. How quickly that recognition translates into concrete changes in ministry guidelines and project design will determine whether fisheries and blue carbon initiatives become more responsive to the differing needs and contributions of all community members.
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