Transformative change for global biodiversity: the role of gender equality and social inclusion

Executive Summary

1. The climate and nature crises impact first and worst on women, girls and marginalised groups in the Global South. The social, economic and political empowerment of women, girls and groups that face marginalisation – such as Indigenous Peoples and local communities – has been shown to deliver better environmental outcomes. However, too often actions that are designed to address climate change and biodiversity loss exclude their voices, their needs and their agency, and risk exacerbating rather than addressing social inequalities.
2. From 4-6 September 2024, representatives from governments in the global south, global north, indigenous people’s organisations, civil society, multilateral organisations and academia came together to explore the situation, and to develop practical measures at global, national and local level to ensure that women, girls, and marginalised groups are at the heart of efforts to tackle the global biodiversity crisis.
3. Discussions covered the persistent difficulties in supporting inclusive and genuinely locally-led leadership on biodiversity action, despite the strength of the evidence suggesting that this is the most beneficial way forward. Conference sessions focused on why inclusion is vital for transformative biodiversity action; what can be learned from inclusive and transformative biodiversity action; barriers to achieving transformative change for biodiversity; Championing the implementation of Target 22 and Target 23 as fundamental to achieving the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; Inclusive biodiversity finance for transformative change.
4. Key themes that emerged across the discussions included the importance of cross learning between development and conservation worlds, across government departments and the Rio conventions; valuing different sources of knowledge; the importance of engagement/collaboration outside the biodiversity world; tensions and challenges – and lessons – on getting funding to grassroots; and the challenges of working on inequalities in the biodiversity space in an intersectional way.
5. Working groups developed a set of recommendations in relation to the challenges around finance and the implementation of Targets 22 and 23 of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In addition, participants developed a set of principles to scale up inclusive, gender-responsive, locally led biodiversity action (Annex 1).
6. This report captures the main points and recommendations of the discussion. It does not represent policy of the UK Government or any of the participants. A short film made at the event is available here.

Key themes

6. Another key theme is the recognition that despite growing evidence that the best way to achieve biodiversity goals is through working in genuine partnership with people who live in biodiversity hotspots in the developing world, the perception that biodiversity and nature is pristine when left alone, and that human presence only degrades it, is a stubborn one. This leads to local people who are living in poverty often shouldering the blame or painted as destroyers, with external actors painted as the saviours of pristine environments. In fact, very often local communities have managed and improved that natural environment for many years without outside intervention.  
7. Linked to this, another theme was the importance of an integrated approach to biodiversity that values the contribution of both the natural and economic sciences as well as local and traditional knowledge. As well as the importance of recognising traditional and local knowledge, this is about addressing the notion that people and biodiversity and wider nature are separate, or that any relationship between the two is direct and linear. In reality, perspectives are much more interconnected and impact each other in intersecting ways, and people are much more reliant on biodiversity and nature with different groups placing different values on the natural world.
8. As we work towards better and more inclusive biodiversity action, we must ensure that we don’t perpetuate other stereotyping narratives around gender inequality, such as assuming all local communities have inclusive participation already built in, or that women are solely victims of environmental degradation, or the opposite that the environmental agenda and role as stewards should be added to their burden. Gender is always a lens for intersecting inequalities, such as age, class, education, place – it is important for biodiversity action to dig beneath these narratives and go beyond them. The global biodiversity and development goals cannot be achieved without challenging gender inequalities, which requires working with a diverse range of people beyond visible, and traditional community leadership structures.
9. The need for quality finance (that is, long term and predictable) for biodiversity action which reaches the local level, and the challenges of delivery this were another key theme. This is a particular challenge for large, multi-stakeholder funds like the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund with very complex governance structures, to ensure that gender equality and social inclusion are demonstrably central to its delivery.
10. Finally, effective biodiversity action is dependent on securing land and resource rights. Many communities lack formal and secure land and resource rights, and this directly hinders their ability to sustainably manage areas over the long-term. Even when rights do exist, they are often ignored or not upheld, and there are limited accountability or redress mechanisms in place to protect individuals. An estimated 28% of land globally is occupied by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but tenure only covers 10% of that. There is a vast difference globally, between and sometimes within countries where there are some indigenous groups that have a high level of recognition, and others with none.