Nature's Leading Women
Nurturing a global sisterhood of conservation leaders
This global movement fosters a safe environment for women leaders in conservation to speak up and lead.
Climate and Environmental Challenges Need Women
As the world faces an escalating climate crisis and unprecedented degradation of nature, we confront several persistent truths: these global challenges disproportionately impact women and girls; and women are consistently excluded or marginalized from decisions related to climate change and the environment.
Despite efforts aimed at improving gender balance, women remain significantly underrepresented in key decision-making forums. For example, women made up less than 34 percent of country-negotiating teams at recent climate conferences.
The evidence is clear and deeply concerning. Only 0.2 percent of overseas climate finance reaches women-led efforts.1 Only 17 percent of funding intended for Indigenous communities reaches them and only 5 percent of that reaches Indigenous women.2
Across every country in the world, women are the primary resource managers—whether that means meal planning and grocery shopping; planting and harvesting crops; or gathering water and firewood.
Women also utilize, understand, and interact with nature and natural resources differently than men; in coastal and marine areas, for example, women typically harvest crabs, shellfish, and other marine life near the shoreline.
Meanwhile, men—who often control household finances—load boats, gather nets and head further out to sea.
A growing body of scientific evidence makes it clear: Women have a uniquely vital role to play in the pursuit of healthy communities, sustainable economies, thriving nature and a liveable climate.
Increasing women’s leadership creates a win-win. Incorporating their distinctive experiences, perspectives and feedback creates more sustainable, transformative climate and conservation decisions. At the same time, women gain greater agency, employment opportunities and are better able to plan for their families, all of which strengthens community resilience.
When women remain underrepresented—or entirely absent—they are unable to directly influence decision making, design, and deployment of solutions to the biodiversity and climate crises that directly impact them. That absence can also lead to on-the-ground inequity and failure of large-scale carbon and conservation projects.
Research shows that market-based solutions, including carbon and biodiversity offsets, primarily benefit men in high-income countries, while largely ignoring and minimizing the rights, interests and lives of women, especially in low-income countries. The exclusion of women also significantly slows progress in solving the very crises market-based solutions are intended to resolve.
We know climate change is not gender-neutral and yet women are routinely excluded from international climate negotiations. For example, only 15 out of 133 world leaders attending COP28 were women and, disturbingly, less than 2% of delegations had equal men and women on them.
Elevating Women and Gender-Diverse Voices in Global Climate and Biodiversity Governance
What exacerbates these issues will not solve these issues! We can no longer afford to exclude half of humanity from the decision-making table. Women, in all their diversity, bring unique perspectives, traditional ecological knowledge, and proven solutions that have been overlooked too often. Their lived experiences at the intersection of climate and, environmnent offer vital insights that could transform our approach to planetary survival.
The decisions made in global spaces like the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and CBD, and through international finance mechanisms create ripple effects that shape national policies, institutional practices, and resource allocation worldwide.
By transforming how women participate in and lead these high-level spaces, we can establish new norms and standards that cascade down to influence environmental governance at every scale.
We believe that women should have agency to lead our planet's most pressing climate and environmental challenges.
Nature's Leading Woman, was initiated by The Nature Conservancy and is supported by CSDR as a knowledge partner.
The first Nature's Leading Women event took place in 2017 and brought together over 30 women from countries across Asia Pacific including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Micronesia and Northern Australia to participate in financial literacy, business management and leadership training. It also provided an opportunity for the women to learn from each other and showcase how they are protecting their environment and creating better opportunities for their communities.
In November 2024, more than 60 women from 12 countries across the Asia Pacific region and Africa gathered in Cavanbah / Byron Bay, Australia, for the second Nature’s Leading Women event - resulting in the Action Agenda.
Right now, women are largely invisible in not only the systems perpetuating climate change and biodiversity loss, but also the spaces leading to the solutions.
Resources
Papers prepared for Nature's Leading Women: Donor & Partner Roundtable Series 2024 by Centre for Sustainable Development Reform
Gender Equality in Climate and Biodiversity
Action Agenda
The Action Agenda calls for bold, inclusive action on climate and biodiversity. By placing women and gender diverse leadership and expertise at the heart of the response to the climate and biodiversity crises, we can shift the paradigm and drive tangible, durable solutions for those most impacted.
The evidence is clear.
When women in all their diversity lead climate and environmental action, their approach results in more effective and sustainable decisions. This, in turn, strengthens their communities and enhances community well-being.
Nine actions to improve gender equity and drive better decisions for climate and nature
1. Gender parity in delegations.
Establish clear targets and timelines for achieving gender balance. Gender diverse conference committees, and representation in co-chairs throughout conferences and negotiating committees.
2. Gender parity in leadership.
Ensure that negotiating workstreams, committees, dialogues and subsidiary bodies are cochaired by a woman. Implement mandatory gender balance requirements for all delegation leadership positions. Appoint COP Co-Presidencies -one man and one woman.
3. Gender equality in co-design.
Facilitate extensive consultation with women, in all diversity, to listen deeply and include their concerns, priorities, policy approaches and solutions. Give women a platform to foreground the results of these consultations in the lead up to and at the major negotiations such as the COPs.
4. Mentoring in conference engagement.
Establish formal mentorship programs that pair experienced women negotiators with first-time participants, beginning 3-6 months before major conferences to provide comprehensive preparation on negotiation processes, intervention strategies, and the informal diplomatic protocols essential for effective participation. Effective participation in complex international forums requires more than just securing a seat at the table-it requires the knowledge, confidence, and networks to use that seat effectively.
5. Inclusive conference spaces.
Gender inclusive bathrooms, facilities to enable participation from working mothers such as lactation rooms and childcare facilities near negotiating areas and secure transportation links between venues and accommodation to enable women to safely work late.
6. Inclusive and diverse dialogue formats.
Include spaces and dialogue formats to accommodate different cultural preferences of women and other marginalized groups (e.g., Talanoa style discussions). Creating dedicated spaces for women and gender diverse caucuses and networking, including culturally appropriate spaces (e.g., weaving and yarning circles). Appoint First Nations women to key positions recommended by cultural authority, including the Presidency and a High-level Champion for Women.
7. Ringfence funding and logistical support for women's attendance at international negotiations, including COPs.
The financial cost of attending a conference can be greater for women due to income disparities and carer responsibilities. Accessing funding and having a passport and necessary visas represent a significant barrier. Include logistical support for acquiring passports/visas, safe travel routes, accommodation, which is close to the venue and provision of childcare or childcare grants.
8. Dedicate gender equality finance.
Create a dedicated finance window in multilateral funds with reduced access and reporting requirements to support grassroots initiatives with grant-based finance. Provide guidance to multilateral funds and set targets for increasing the share of climate and biodiversity finance going to women-led initiatives and grassroots initiatives that have a primary objective of gender equality.
9. Innovative finance designed by women for gender equality.
Mandate project standards for carbon and other market-based projects that are developed with, not just for, women (e.g. W+ Standard). Encourage the use of blended finance which combines public and private funds to de-risk investments in women-led biodiversity and climate. Embed gender equality at the core of private finance, through standardised metrics and reporting frameworks (expanding beyond female representation to measure financial inclusion).
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1. Global Greengrants Fund. Mapping Report Executive Summary. March 6, 2018.
2. Rights and Resources Initiative and Rainforest Foundation Norway. Funding with Purpose: A Study to Inform Donor Support for Indigenous and Local Community Rights, Climate, and Conservation. September 2022.
Nature's Leading Woman, was initiated by The Nature Conservancy and is supported by CSDR as a knowledge partner.