Indigenous and Afro-descendant women play a crucial role in safeguarding the natural world, despite facing numerous challenges and barriers.

Key Role in Nature Protection:
Indigenous and Afro-descendant women possess rich knowledge about local biodiversity, sustainable practices, and interdependencies between communities and natural ecosystems. Their observations of environmental changes make them important agents of change in addressing biodiversity loss.

Intersectional Discrimination:
These women face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, including racial, gender, and economic barriers. These challenges limit their participation in governance structures related to biodiversity management, such as Protected Area Councils and Rural Development Councils.

Economic and Structural Barriers:
Women’s equal involvement in biodiversity-based supply chains and sectors can facilitate economic prosperity and ecosystem protection. However, economic measures like micro-credits, low-interest loans, and market linkages are needed to increase their access to sustainable livelihoods and financial decision-making.

Social Protection and Empowerment:
Social protection systems must recognize and address the unique vulnerabilities of these women. This includes making public institutions fully responsive to their rights and needs, leveraging reforms to rebuild trust between citizens and the State, and improving their resilience and empowerment in households and communities.

Global Support Needed:
Indigenous women need global support. This includes integrating a gender lens into biodiversity-related policies to ensure that the perspectives of both women and men are considered, reducing the risk of perpetuating or aggravating inequalities.

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