FP Analytics

An issue brief by FP Analytics, with support from Daughters for Earth

Biodiversity loss is accelerating at an unprecedented pace globally. Ten thousand species of flora and fauna go extinct each year, disrupting ecosystems and carrying grave implications for environmental stability, socioeconomic development, and health systems. Women and girls, especially those from marginalized communities, face disproportionate direct and indirect impacts related to biodiversity loss, including food and water insecurity and forced displacement. Yet, women and girls are also increasingly recognized as vital stewards and advocates of biodiversity, bringing distinct perspectives alongside learned and inherited knowledge to conservation efforts. Adopted in 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) envisions: “By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored, and widely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet, and delivering benefits essential for all people.” The GBF emphasizes the critical role that women play in advancing a holistic approach to biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and global prosperity. Among multilateral policies on biodiversity, the GBF is unique in its emphasis on women and girls, including a specific gender-responsive target (Target 23), and accompanied by a Gender Action Plan for implementation.

Despite this significant step forward in acknowledging women’s contributions to biodiversity conservation, women’s leadership and participation are not systematically integrated into conservation efforts at the grassroots, national, or multilateral levels. This oversight can result in strategies and interventions that elide the significant impacts of biodiversity loss on vulnerable groups, including women and girls, particularly those from impoverished and indigenous communities, and aging populations. As a result, strategies often fail to capitalize on the knowledge that these stakeholder groups bring to conservation based on their interactions with the natural world.

With the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rapidly approaching and the international community moving closer to both the global warming threshold cautioned against in the Paris Agreement and climate-related biodiversity tipping points, the under-representation of women and girls from diverse backgrounds and at all societal levels could be disastrous. Fully realizing the environmental and socioeconomic benefits of women’s leadership in biodiversity conservation will require breaking down silos within and between sectors, expanding investments, and closing funding gaps for women-led conservation efforts, while amplifying the impactful women-led work that is already underway globally. This issue brief analyzes the multifaceted and disproportionate impacts of biodiversity loss on women and girls and explores the ways in which women are driving conservation. The analysis highlights how women’s work and knowledge can be augmented and amplified to achieve the UN SDGs, and the vision of the GBF.

Biodiversity loss causes significant socioeconomic impacts, including environmental degradation, gender inequity, and economic losses

Biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth, from genes to species to ecosystems, is fundamental not only to the existence and well-being of humanity but also to planetary health and the global economy. Over half of global GDP (USD 44 trillion) depends on nature and ecosystem services. Some four billion people, approximately half of the world’s population, rely on natural medicines, and 70 percent of cancer drugs are derived from, or dependent on, nature. However, biodiversity is declining at a rapid rate, with around 25 percent of animal and plant groups threatened by extinction. Globally, the loss of pollination, fisheries, and tropical forestry could potentially result in a USD 2.7 trillion reduction in global GDP in 2030 alone, with sub-Saharan Africa expected to lose the most at USD 358 billion, followed by South Asia at USD 320 billion. Five leading factors drive biodiversity loss: unsustainable changes in land and sea use, overexploitation of natural resources, climate change, pollution, and invasive species. These drivers are shaped by, and deeply rooted in, societal and economic values and behaviors, particularly in consumption and production patterns. This intersection of human behavior and biodiversity loss is where women’s leadership and participation can drive transformative impact.

$2,700,000,000,000

The reduction in global GDP projected in 2030 due to the loss of pollination, fisheries, and tropical forestry

$358,000,000,000

The projected loss of GDP in 2030 in sub-Saharan Africa due to biodiversity loss

$328,000,000,000

The projected loss of GDP in 2030 in South Asia due to biodiversity loss

$2,700,000,000,000

The reduction in global GDP projected in 2030 due to the loss of pollination, fisheries, and tropical forestry

$358,000,000,000

The projected loss of GDP in 2030 in sub-Saharan Africa due to biodiversity loss

$328,000,000,000

The projected loss of GDP in 2030 in South Asia due to biodiversity loss

Agriculture-driven biodiversity loss

+

Global food systems contribute to the deterioration of biodiversity through conversions of natural ecosystems for food production, carbon emissions, and unsustainable farming practices that degrade the soil and diminish the productive capacity of land. For example, livestock farming, which relies on monocropping and causes soil erosion, uses around 2.5 billion hectares of land, or 20 percent of all land on Earth. Current agricultural practices put 86 percent of species at risk of extinction, and yet over 75 percent of food crop varieties worldwide, including cash crops such as coffee and cocoa, depend on animal pollinators. This creates a vicious cycle in which the global food system drives biodiversity loss, and biodiversity loss, in turn, jeopardizes global food security and agricultural livelihoods.

Women often take on critical roles in resource management, agriculture, and household consumption decisions, and are projected to control 75 percent of discretionary spending by 2030. However, their working conditions—particularly in food and agricultural production systems—tend to be irregular, informal, part-time, low-skilled, labor-intensive, and unpaid, after which they are usually expected to work a so-called second shift caring for children and elders, and performing domestic work. Entrenched gender norms, limited resources, and lack of recognition for women’s ecological knowledge are significant barriers to the full participation of women and girls in biodiversity. In Tanzania, stigma and superstitions prevent women from joining fishing expeditions on Lake Victoria and having a greater role in fisheries, as their presence is believed to bring bad luck and reduce catches. Beyond social norms, legal and economic barriers prevent women from implementing nature-based solutions or other forms of agroecology that seek to preserve biodiversity. Crucially, more than 70 percent of women lack land ownership, based on data from 53 countries, limiting their influence on land-use decisions. Achieving meaningful progress and maximizing results in biodiversity conservation require breaking these barriers down to ensure their full participation.

Women and girls are strengthening biodiversity around the world, locally, nationally, and globally

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), adopted by 196 countries in December 2022, is the first multilateral environmental framework to recognize the central role that women play in biodiversity stewardship and conservation. Target 23 promotes gender-responsive approach in biodiversity action, ensuring equal rights and participation for women and girls in biodiversity. In particular, the GBF’s Gender Action Plan is a significant step toward recognizing and cementing the role of women in conservation, clearly laying out goals and objectives up to 2030, but it needs to be implemented and built upon. Strengthening biodiversity reinforces the realization of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on gender equality and several intersecting SDGs, including SDG 2 on zero hunger, SDG 3 on good health, SDG 6 on clean water and sanitation, SDG 13 on climate change, and SDGs 14 and 15 on life on land and below sea. 

Expanding women’s roles in sustainable agriculture can lead to improved food security and reversal of biodiversity loss in terrestrial ecosystems. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that closing gender disparities in agricultural productivity and wages could add roughly USD one trillion to the global GDP, lower global food insecurity by about two percent, and help 45 million people escape food insecurity. Additional evidence demonstrates that women foster sustainable food systems: in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania, increasing women’s ownership of land and capital assets and leadership in food production decisions are correlated with a significant increase in farm-level crop diversity, which supports greater soil health and ecosystem resilience. Women in rural communities in Africa are custodians of seed diversity and wild plant species, possessing traditional knowledge of how to integrate wild plant varieties with domestic crops to increase diversity in farming systems, a practice known as agroecology. In Rwanda, a pilot program that improved land access for women led to increased investment in soil conservation by female-headed households.

In Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania, increasing women’s ownership of land and capital assets and leadership in food production decisions are correlated with a significant increase in farm-level crop diversity, which supports greater soil health and ecosystem resilience.

Similarly, in aquatic sectors, expanding women’s roles and leadership can lead to more sustainable use of marine and freshwater resources and improved livelihoods. Case studies from Mexican small-scale fisheries show women taking on roles in marine conservation, ecosystem monitoring, and sustainable fishing management after gaining access to resources, female role models, and support from civil society organizations (CSOs) and male allies. Including women in the management of water can increase the effectiveness of those projects by up to seven times. In Japan, savvy and entrepreneurial women’s groups sell low-value fish that otherwise would be wasted, earning an annual revenue of USD 9 million while contributing to sustainable fisheries management.

Across the world, indigenous women use traditional knowledge and practices, which have evolved over generations, to support the climate resilience of their communities. They become leaders in biodiversity, as well as in managing weather-related challenges and advocating for their communities’ rights to ancestral lands. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, over 700 indigenous women are leading a reforestation project in Itombwe Rainforest, with the aim of planting 36,000 trees annually. In Eastern Panama, the women of the indigenous Ipeti Embera community have led the reforestation of native tree species after the community struggled to build homes due to a declining timber supply. In Vanuatu, with the support of ActionAid Australia, women on Tanna Island created the Women’s Weather Watch (WWW) program, an early warning system composed of a network of women who alert each other and their communities of impending weather events. Despite facing multiple barriers, indigenous women continue to protect biodiversity and drive climate action, thereby advancing multiple SDGs.

Benefits of Investing in Biodiversity

Spending on biodiversity conservation has compounding economic impacts: new jobs and business opportunites are created, particularly in the tourism and hospitality sectors, especially in rural and coastal communities.

DATA SOURCES: IMF (2021), World Bank (2021)

Beyond these significant environmental and social benefits, biodiversity conservation efforts, including those that center women’s leadership and participation, have a clear and multifold financial return. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) study estimated that for every dollar spent on conservation, there is a return of almost USD 7 in five years. Another World Bank study in 2021 estimated that for every dollar of public investment in tourism in protected areas, there is a return of at least USD 6 (in the case of Brazil’s Abrolhos Marine Park) to as much as USD 28.2 (Zambia’s South Luangwa). Women can become key agents in generating additional value from biodiversity. For instance, a study in Sweden suggested that female forest owners are more likely to see business opportunities in tourism and health, beyond traditional timber production. Companies with over 30 percent women as board members are found to have better climate governance, characterized by greater transparency regarding their environmental impacts and implementation of sustainable practices.

For every dollar spent on conservation, there is a return of almost USD 7 in five years.

—International Monetary Fund (2021)

Women’s and girls’ contributions to conservation and sustainability efforts are vital to an effective whole-of-society approach to reduce and reverse biodiversity loss with the aim of driving sustainable development and economic growth. Research on communities across the world demonstrates that women’s involvement in natural resource management can lead to more equitable sharing of resources, improve compliance with rules and restrictions, and facilitate the long-term sustainability of resources such as fish stocks and forests. Women have also been found to prioritize different crops to men—both in farming and the collection of ecosystems services—as they often prefer to cultivate or gather materials that will be useful for domestic or medicinal use rather than only those that will garner the most profit. This, in turn, can reduce the risks of monocropping and facilitate or re-introduce biodiversity on a small scale, especially since women represent approximately half of smallholder farmers globally. Historically, women have consistently mobilized around civil society and community-led movements to protect local biodiverse areas and successfully oppose government- or private sector-led redevelopment plans. The Silent Valley movement, for example, in Kerela, India, was a successful women-led protest in the 1970s against the conversion of a regional biodiversity hotspot into a hydroelectric dam, leading to the designation of Silent Valley as a national park in the 1980s.

Development Financing in Biodiversity Allocated to Marginalized Populations

Lack of gender-disaggregated data, particularly regarding funding, hinders timely and targeted reporting on the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

DATA SOURCES: Deutz, A. et al. (2020); Convention on Biodiversity, Advisory Committee on Resource Mobilization (2024); OECD (2023); Authors’ calculations.

The impacts of women-led biodiversity conservation can be scaled-up through investment in capacity-building, expanded funding, and gender-sensitive policymaking

Opportunities abound to expand the women-led conservation efforts that are already underway across multiple sectors—including agriculture, energy, and ecosystem services—and at varying levels of governance—including civil society and community-led efforts, national and multilateral policy, and in the private and non-governmental sectors. However, challenges and barriers to women’s leadership remain, including barriers to impactful monitoring and evaluation of women-led conservation efforts, gender-based discrimination, and lack of technical capacity.

Accelerating the impactful work already led and facilitated by women and girls requires interventions in three key areas: creating and implementing gender-sensitive and -responsive policy, expanding funding opportunities and pipelines, and capacity-building.

Financing

Financing represents a significant barrier to women’s leadership, and to the sustainable expansion of successful biodiversity conservation work (see Figure 2). Women and girls, and indigenous communities—which inhabit lands containing over 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity—are the primary stewards of biodiverse environments. Yet, around 80 percent of climate funding goes to organizations led by men, and 90 percent to organizations led by white people. The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Best Practices in Gender and Biodiversity guide highlights financing as a key area in which to make gender equity gains and promote gender-responsive biodiversity conservation efforts, noting that women’s inability to access resources remains a significant barrier to achieving both goals.

Women and girls, and indigenous communities—which inhabit lands containing over 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity—are the primary stewards of biodiverse environments.

Multilateral financing mechanisms, philanthropic donations, and overseas development assistance (ODA) all provide opportunities to either specifically target women and women-led biodiversity projects, or to integrate specific gender criteria and dimensions into funding applications and monitoring. Philanthropic organizations as well as private sector companies are well positioned to provide prizes and grants to women environmental leaders and women-led projects, supporting their ongoing goals and publicizing their work to improve understanding of women’s role in biodiversity conservation. Moreover, public-private partnerships such as the Climate Gender Equity Fund (CGEF), which seeks to leverage USD 60 million in financing from private-sector partners to channel into grants of at least USD 100,000, are working to increase climate financing for women-led, gender-responsive, and women-benefiting organizations.

Around 80 percent of climate funding goes to organizations led by men, and 90 percent to organizations led by white people.

The agreement of the 2024 GBF also represents an opportunity for global and regional multilateral financing mechanisms to integrate gender dimensions into their biodiversity and climate work, and vice versa. The UNDP BIOFIN project offers a replicable model for other multilateral institutions, laying out clear and specific guidelines for gender-sensitive project design, including implementing gender-sensitive monitoring indicators, and ensuring female participation in all consultations, steering groups, and implementing teams. Similarly, the Central African Forest Initiative, a multilateral partnership among various African and European nations, and Brazil, provides a model for gradually expanding gender-sensitivity targets to ensure sustainable long-term growth. The initiative exceeded a previously set target of funding 15 percent gender-equitable projects in 2019, and it is now working to ensure that at least 30 percent of programs are gender-responsive.

Capacity-building and technical assistance

One common obstacle to women’s leadership in biodiversity conservation is a lack of technical and functional capacity—such as strategy formulation, budgeting, or financial planning—to sustainably expand ongoing efforts. This is particularly relevant to community-based and civil society-led biodiversity conservation work, where women may have identified challenges or opportunities in their daily lives and acted on them, but do not know how to increase or measure their impact. Governments, NGOs, and multilateral institutions can therefore be vital partners supporting women-led organizations to achieve and step up their goals. The Women in the Sustainable Economy (WISE) initiative is an example of government-supported capacity-building by the U.S. government, mobilizing over USD 900 million in public-private commitments. The initiative supports women’s participation in sustainable economic activities and seeks to improve their land rights and access to resources, thus far prompting over USD 1.4 billion in funding from public- and private-sector partners. In one WISE priority area, the blue economy, the U.S. Department of State is providing ODA and technical assistance to pilot new, or to scale existing, projects in maritime sectors, with a particular focus on sustainable fishing, aquaculture, and tourism, with an initial focus on the Pacific Islands.

Multilateral institutions and the private sector also have a critical role in capacity building and technical assistance for women-led biodiversity efforts. In particular, stakeholders in both sectors have invested in improving data quality and availability, working with program coordinators and project managers to help them collect high-quality, gender-disaggregated data on biodiversity. This work is vital to closing long-standing data gaps that prevent accurate analysis of the impact of biodiversity and other environmental and social challenges on gender equity and women’s rights, and vice versa. Data-driven capacity building can be built into existing projects and offered to new grantees and assistance recipients as part of a broader gender-mainstreaming agenda. The World Bank, for example, launched the Strengthening Gender Statistics (SGS) project in 2022, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The SGS provides technical assistance to LMICs to improve the production and publicization of gender statistics, with a focus on economic development. Similar projects focusing specifically on gender and biodiversity could support stakeholders to demonstrate both the necessity and effectiveness of their work.

Gender-responsive policy

A clear policy agenda, set at the highest levels and implemented fully, is critical to supporting women’s leadership in biodiversity conservation, and mobilizing the resources and sustained budgeting necessary to address the impacts of biodiversity loss. Gender-responsive policy integrates gender concerns into all aspects of biodiversity and environmental policy, and clearly demonstrates that leaders are prioritizing these intertwined issues. The GBF itself is a good example of gender-responsive international policy, dedicating one of its targets to gender equity, and issuing guidance and action plans to ensure that implementation of the plan takes gender equity concerns into account. The Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for Small Island Developing States (ABAS for SIDS) is another such example, prominently featuring an agenda for women’s empowerment and equality within its strategy for sustainable development. The ABAS highlights that SIDS are at increased vulnerability to environmental challenges, including biodiversity loss, rising sea levels, and natural disasters, acknowledging not only that women and girls are disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of these challenges, but also that gender equity is key to overcoming them and achieving sustainable development.

CASE STUDY

Local fisherwomen bring their knowledge and perspective to Costa Rica’s biodiversity strategy

In the Chomes region of Costa Rica, coastal women and girls have developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the mangrove forests, protecting the area while cultivating, fishing, and selling the mollusks that grow there. Found across the world, mangroves are a hub for biodiversity, and they support food and economic security for coastal communities. Mangroves are also effective carbon sinks and act as a natural coastal defense, reducing the height and strength of waves. Despite the pivotal role that mangroves can play in supporting coastal livelihoods, and as a nature-based solution to extreme weather and flooding, Costa Rica is seeking to redevelop much of its coastline for large-scale aquaculture, resulting in mangrove deforestation and the disempowerment of mollusk fisherwomen.

CoopeSoliDar RL, a cooperative that is dedicated to marine conservation, human rights, and sustainable development, is seeking to prevent this outcome by working with local and national authorities and partnering with international NGOs. As part of its work, the cooperative has launched a pilot project with Women4Biodiversity, an international NGO, to improve local fisherwomen’s quality of life through mangrove conservation and the establishment of rules and restrictions for commercial mollusk fishing, over a 100-hectare area of mangroves. These restrictions include defined no-take areas, standard-setting for the size of commercially sold mangroves, and the elimination of unsustainable mangrove practices. CoopeSoliDar has facilitated meetings between representatives of the fisherwomen and local and national policymakers to integrate local women’s knowledge, perspective, and needs into Costa Rica’s NBSAP and biodiversity strategy.

CASE STUDY

A women-led group leverages local plant cultivation to support female entrepreneurs and improve quality of life

Women-led biodiversity conservation and climate activism are common in Mexico, despite high levels of femicide and threats to climate activists. In 2022, the Mexican delegation to COP25 unveiled the country’s first-ever National Action Plan for Gender and Climate Change, acknowledging the important role that women play in climate action and biodiversity conservation, and seeking to integrate a gender-sensitive perspective into climate mitigation and adaptation.

Mujeres y Ambiente is a women-led NGO that seeks to promote biodiversity conservation, support women entrepreneurs, and improve quality of life and health for local communities in Mexico. The group, which now works closely with multisectoral partners including a Spanish cosmetics company, the Mexican government, and a local university, began in 2009 supporting just 35 women, but it now reaches over 70 families. The group’s activities include the establishment and cultivation of 35 orchards and community gardens, which grow native species in support of local biodiversity. Female microentrepreneurs harvest the ingredients grown for use in natural cosmetics, selling to Spanish cosmetics company Provital, which has since been recognized for its sustainable supply chain. Members also work with students at the Autonomous University of Qurétaro to utilize water conservation strategies such as biofilters and rainwater collection tanks, as the region suffers from low rainfall and degraded soil. Mujeres y Ambiente’s goals include increasing capacity and employment in Mexican communities, increasing women’s sources of income, and reducing migration to the United States, while protecting and rebuilding local biodiversity. Since its inception, the group has also consulted on Mexican biodiversity strategy. In 2020, Mujeres y Ambiente was awarded UNDP’s Equator Prize in recognition of its work on biodiversity and women’s rights.

CASE STUDY

Women wildlife rangers protect local biodiversity in Kenyan national parks

Kenya’s Amboseli National Park is home to thousands of species, including elephants, lions, cheetahs, and giraffes, all of which sustain local biodiversity but are at high risk of poaching and retaliatory killing. The lands around the national park are inhabited by Maasai communities, whose lifestyle gives them a deep connection to, and understanding of, the land and local fauna. Leveraging this knowledge, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has for several years worked with Maasai communities, hiring local men as park rangers and training local women to use cameras to document wildlife encounters and poaching activities.

In 2019, IFAW expanded its efforts in biodiversity conservation and women’s rights by founding Team Lioness, the first all-female team of park rangers. The eight Maasai women forming the original team are the first women in their family to secure paid employment and are at the forefront of improving gender equity in their community, which is traditionally patriarchal. Team Lioness members have found that, in addition to contributing their experience and knowledge to biodiversity conservation, they are also key conduits for information, as local Maasai women often prefer to share information about potential poaching activity with trusted female rangers. In 2021, the team doubled in size, with support from German philanthropic foundation Margarete Beuer Stiftung.

At the national level, governments are beginning to integrate a gender lens into biodiversity strategies and roadmaps, but plans need to be replicated, scaled up, and implemented. For example, Ecuador’s 2015-2030 National Biodiversity Strategy mainstreams gender throughout, acknowledging the pivotal roles that women and girls, and indigenous communities, play in stewarding nature and biodiversity, and recognizing the different perspectives that men and women can bring to environmental policy implementation, as well as the disproportionate impact of biodiversity loss on women. The strategy references the gender equality articles enshrined in Ecuador’s constitution, along with the country’s National Agenda for Women and Gender Equality (since replaced with the National Agenda for Women and LGBTI People), both of which guide the mainstreaming of gender throughout the Biodiversity Strategy. As a result, the Biodiversity Strategy has an accompanying series of gender-sensitive checklists for each stage and sector of its implementation, and has set clear, data-driven goals relating to gender for each of the Strategy’s targeted outcomes.

International conservation organizations such as the IUCN also work closely with national governments to develop biodiversity strategies and climate action plans, and are increasingly emphasizing gender-responsive strategies. The IUCN AGENT program, for example, works with governments to develop climate change gender action plans (ccGAPs) that integrate gender equity and environmental conservation, including with a focus on biodiversity. AGENT’s approach works to fill information and data gaps relating to gender and environmental linkages, demonstrate the case for gender-sensitive or gender-integrated environmental policy, and then provide technical support to policymaking, procurement, and gender analysis of existing programs to ensure that national strategies are truly gender-sensitive. Countries including Cameroon, Uganda, and Ghana have worked with AGENT to integrate a gender perspective, and ensure women’s participation, into their REDD+ policies, which focus specifically on forestry and reducing deforestation.

Looking ahead: Overcoming barriers to women’s leadership in biodiversity conservation through multistakeholder collaboration

The agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and particularly its mainstreaming of gender via Target 23, represents a historic opportunity for the global community to cement the role of women in biodiversity conservation. Capitalizing on this moment will require stakeholders in biodiversity from across all sectors to work closely with women and girls at the grassroots level, in local and national policy, and through diplomacy to reverse the tide of biodiversity loss. In stepping up support for women-led conservation efforts, and working to mainstream gender more effectively into existing and future biodiversity strategies, avenues for stakeholders to prioritize include:

  • Finance mobilization: Stakeholders in biodiversity conservation and gender equity can leverage existing gender-sensitive financing mechanisms—such as BIOFIN—and identify new pathways to seek gender equity in conservation funding, with support from private-sector partners. Potential funds that could fully mainstream gender include UN REDD and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund.
  • Policy and advocacy: National, international, and municipal policymaking can prioritize gender and women’s leadership through the creation of gender-responsive National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) and the integration of gender-sensitive objectives and monitoring and evaluation indicators.
  • Community-building: Cross-sectoral partners can invest in new and existing women-led projects at the community, national, and cross-border levels, and work to integrate and elevate women in decision-making, management, and policy roles. Filha do Sol, a Brazilian NGO that works with women who are responding to hyperlocal challenges to biodiversity conservation, demonstrates how more powerful stakeholders can uplift local projects without overtaking them.
  • Capacity development: Multilateral development institutions, NGOs, civil society organizations, and the private sector can grow and sustain investment in grassroots capacity-building efforts. Such efforts include enhanced technical expertise, management and leadership skills, and education for women and girls, to enable them to benefit from sustainable economy interventions.
  • Knowledge production: Stakeholders in biodiversity can close data gaps regarding gender and biodiversity, and support the collection of high-quality, gender-disaggregated qualitative and quantitative data across the globe, including through partnering with academic and research institutions, and working with community organizations to improve monitoring and evaluation.

Nature is a global public good, and is recognized as such by world leaders, including in the UN’s Our Common Agenda framework, yet its importance is not reflected in global financial flows or policymaking. As species extinction continues apace, and progress toward gender equality goals is at risk of stalling, investing in women-led biodiversity conservation represents a promising opportunity to catalyze progress toward key sustainable development goals. In recognizing and amplifying the impactful work led by women and girls that is already underway, stakeholders in biodiversity can advance progress toward multiple SDGs and strengthen gender equality globally, while protecting and replenishing vital natural resources.

By Isabel Schmidt (Senior Policy Analyst and Research Manager), Angeli Juani (Senior Policy and Quantitative Analyst), and Dr. Mayesha Alam (Vice President of Reserach). Illustration by Sawsan Chalabi for FP Analytics.

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This issue brief was produced by FP Analytics, the independent research division of The FP Group, with financial support from Daughters for Earth. FP Analytics retained control of the research direction and findings of this issue brief. Foreign Policy’s editorial team was not involved in the creation of this content.