For many people and communities around the world, health and well-being is shaped by the relationships they have with their local biodiversity, and the access they have to the ecosystem services which biodiversity provides. Other environmental factors affecting health outcomes include the degree of risk to which people are exposed from ecosystem degradation, from loss of access to biodiversity, or from environmental contaminants or pollution. These environmental drivers of health outcomes are not universal and often have a significant gender component. In many parts of the world, gendered roles in communities, homes, places of work or education, comes with gender-specific health risks, including from how those roles affect relationships with biodiversity.
For example, in situations where women and girls have the main responsibilities for growing, gathering, preparing, or trading foods, they may be most exposed to environment-related risks, including exposure to contaminated water, air pollution, pathogens or other natural hazards.
In many communities where these roles and the skills required have been passed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter for generations means that women are the curators and protectors of important ecological knowledge and other forms of traditional wisdom associated with biodiversity.
However, the science, policy and practice of conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity have not always appropriately recognised, valued or included the perspectives or lived experience of women and girls. Although women, men, girls and boys may be affected by biodiversity loss in different ways, and may hold different knowledge on biodiversity and local ecosystems, those differences are often poorly accounted for. In particular, the fact that women and girls have a vital and unique role to play in conserving biodiversity, including in developing and implementing biodiversity strategies, is frequently overlooked.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted by the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at its 15th meeting in Montreal in 2022 (CBD COP15), asserts that its successful implementation ”will depend on ensuring gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, and on reducing inequalities”. The KMGBF contains two targets specifically aimed at promoting gender equality. Target 22, “Ensure Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice and Information Related to Biodiversity for all” and Target 23, “Ensure Gender Equality and a Gender-Responsive Approach for Biodiversity Action”. In support of these targets, and to better ensure gender-responsive implementation of biodiversity-related policies at national and sub-national levels, COP15 adopted a revised version of its Gender Plan of Action, “to support and promote the gender responsive implementation” of the KMGBF. The plan recognised that efforts to address gender inequalities and those aimed at conserving biodiversity are mutually supportive, and that conservation strategies that can account for and respond to the interlinkages between human rights and environmental concerns are more effective. For example, addressing structural barriers which hamper effective participation of women and girls in decision making can strengthen community involvement and governance of biodiversity issues.
The Gender Plan of Action sets out modalities for maximising synergies between gender equality and the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and the sharing of benefits derived from the use of genetic resources. Recognising the links between biodiversity and gender equality, and the different ways that biodiversity influences health outcomes between men, women, boys and girls, the Cohab Initiative works to integrate gender equality into its work programme, based on the CBD Gender Plan of Action and on guidance from our partners at the CBD Women’s Caucus and Women4Biodiversity, and other Cohab partners..
This year, at the Third International Conference on Health and Biodiversity (Cohab3), Cohab will run a special session on Health Prioritise for Women and Youth to explore and enhance gender-responsive action on biodiversity as a means of addressing health inequalities.
For further information on our work or on the conference, please contact the Cohab Initiative Secretariat.