A global review shows women play a critical but often overlooked role in community wildlife conservation efforts.
Dr Margaret Chapman and Professor Salit Kark from The University of Queensland's School of the Environment examined 32 wildlife management projects that included women across 5 continents.
Dr Chapman said they were surprised at how little the active participation of women was documented in wildlife management and conservation research.
"Daily activities often give women unique and extensive insights into local landscapes, ecosystems, human-wildlife interactions, and seasonal changes over time," Dr Chapman said.
"Women's knowledge of wildlife is often different and complimentary to that of men in their community so if women are not fully included in projects, the picture is incomplete and the outcomes for wildlife conservation will not be as effective.
"Across many diverse places and peoples, the projects showed the strongest conservation results where women had a real voice along with voting power and leadership roles.
"Women's active participation improved species recovery, habitat restoration and reduced poaching."
The study reviewed projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Australia.
Examples of women-led conservation that delivered measurable results included:
- Improvement of degraded habitat for the greater bilby using cultural fire knowledge in Australia
- Decreased poaching through education and patrols by women rangers in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Nepal
- Increased snow leopard protection and reduced predator-livestock conflict in India, Mongolia and Chile
- Increased turtle hatchling survival in Central America
- Habitat restoration and the return of previously lost plant species in Senegal.
Professor Kark said empowering women, taking into account social and cultural factors, was essential to achieving global biodiversity targets.
"Success for community projects needs the contribution of the whole community and ensuring that all knowledge is valued," she said.
"This can be done by addressing the barriers women may face to actively participating.
"Supporting greater representation, inclusion and opportunities can happen through mixed-gender or in some cases, women-only forums.
"Good examples of this are the Indigenous Women Rangers Networks in Australia and The Black Mambas Anti-poaching units in South Africa.
"The 32 case studies examined also revealed the different leadership, problem solving and inter-group conflict resolution styles women bring to a community group, enhancing conservation and wildlife management outcomes and success.
"As women's knowledge is valued, the next generation sees their mothers and grandmothers actively participating opening opportunities for them to also lead for conservation benefits."
The research has been published in Journal of Environmental Management.
It was completed in collaboration with Emeritus Professor Nancy Turner from University of Victoria, Canada.
