Women are advancing the march to protect biodiversity

Ahead of the Convention on Biological Diversity, IIED has launched a series of blogs and interviews illustrating the role, influence and impact of women working to safeguard the world’s biodiversity.

News, 09 October 2018
Collection
Women champions of biodiversity
A series of blogs and interviews illustrating the role, influence and impact of women working to safeguard the world’s biodiversity

The UN biodiversity conference from 17-29 November will gather more than 190 countries to set in motion the action plan for securing ‘a new deal for nature’. In Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will begin the process for shaping the post-2020 global framework for biodiversity.

From providing clean air to fresh water, and fertile soils to nutritious food, biodiversity underpins the health of our planet and the wellbeing of those living in it. And a new series of articles from IIED running up to the UN summit tells the stories of women across the world who are working to conserve and manage our earth’s precious biodiversity.

Dr Cristiana Paşca Palmer, CBD executive secretary, kicks off the collection, exploring how women – as agents of change and frontrunners – can be empowered to build new pathways to sustainability.

Over the coming weeks, www.iied.org will feature a range of women, including Reetu Sogani, a researcher working with grassroots communities in the Himalayas, exploring how forest stewards in India’s Uttarakhand state are informally implementing rules to ensure forest reserves are used sustainably.

Joji Cariño, senior policy advisor and former director at the Forest Peoples Programme, will discuss how to get the voice of indigenous people – and indigenous women in particular – heard in key international frameworks like the CBD, and IIED’s Krystyna Swiderska will explain how women from China, India, Kenya and Peru are preserving traditional seeds that are crucial for food security within their communities.

These interviews and blogs continue IIED’s ‘Outstanding women in development’ series that reflect on the role, influence and impact of women in the field of sustainable development.