Explained: what does gender equality have to do with nature and biodiversity?

Biodiversity is the foundation of life on Earth. But when it comes to protecting nature, one crucial piece of the puzzle is often overlooked: gender equality.

Women and girls around the world are deeply connected to biodiversity. They gather water, grow food, collect firewood, and care for families. They rely heavily on nature - and are deeply impacted when ecosystems are damaged. Yet, their voices are rarely heard in decisions about how we manage and protect nature.

Women are already doing the work

Globally, women restore forests, protect watersheds, and preserve traditional knowledge. Nearly a third of women’s employment globally is in agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors heavily dependent on healthy ecosystems.

Yet they often lack legal rights to the land they work on, access to finance, or seats at the table when policies are made.

Despite producing up to 80%  of food in developing countries, women hold fewer than 20% of land titles land titles and  just 12% hold senior leadership positions.

When nature suffers, women feel it first

Biodiversity loss hits women in complex and cascading ways. As natural resources become scarce, women often walk further to collect water and fuel, spend more hours tending to family needs, and have less time for education, paid work, or civic participation. Globally, women perform over 75% of unpaid care work—more than three times as much as men.

Ecosystem collapse can also increase gender-based violence, especially in post-disaster settings or areas where livelihood insecurity rises. The result? A cycle of deepening vulnerability—for women, for families, and for the ecosystems they depend on.

So, what does this have to do with biodiversity finance?

Biodiversity finance refers to the range of public and private funding tools that help countries protect and restore ecosystems. These include subsidies, conservation trust funds, green bonds, environmental taxes, and payments for ecosystem services. Only US$143 billion is invested in nature annually—far short of the US$824 billion needed.

Finance is part of the solution—but only if it’s done right.

Without a gender lens, finance mechanisms can reinforce inequality. For example, a conservation scheme that pays landowners may exclude women if they don’t hold formal land titles. A reforestation project might unintentionally exclude women if it overlooks their unpaid workload or fails to offer childcare at training sites.

The good news? We can do better

When gender equality is built into biodiversity finance, the impact is stronger. Nature-based solutions that are inclusive tend to be more sustainable, more widely supported, and more transformative. Here’s what that can look like:

• Women-led cooperatives receiving small grants to restore mangroves and generate income
• Gender-balanced committees making decisions about ecosystem management
• Inclusion of Indigenous women’s knowledge in biodiversity planning
• Tailored financing options that give women access to green jobs and loans

In Brazil, municipalities with female mayors have seen 30% lower deforestation rates in the Amazon. Across countries, when women participate equally, conservation outcomes improve.

This connection is now recognized at the highest global level. Target 23 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls on governments to ensure gender equality through a gender-responsive approach—recognizing women’s equal rights to land and resources and ensuring their full and informed participation in biodiversity decision-making at all levels. Biodiversity finance will be critical in turning this commitment into concrete results on the ground.

What’s being done?

Across the BIOFIN community, change is already happening. In Costa Rica, inclusive financing mechanisms are helping women lead restoration initiatives and develop nature-positive enterprises—strengthening both local economies and ecosystems.

In China, gender-responsive biodiversity finance in Shandong Province is empowering women in traditional handicraft enterprises—supporting livelihoods while advancing biodiversity goals through sustainable resource use and equitable benefit-sharing.

And in Mongolia, the leadership of Ms. Odontuya Ononpuntsag in the Ikh-Uul region shows how local women leaders, backed by targeted finance tools, are restoring forests, managing transparent budgets, and inspiring national recognition for environmental stewardship.

To meet global biodiversity goals, gender equality cannot be an afterthought—it must be built into the way we finance and protect nature.