854 K. Westerman
towards gender-responsiveness, and gender is tracked at a portfolio level. Gender also features prominently in other public funding entities such as the World Bank and bi- lateral country donors (e.g. United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Australian Aid, UK Aid Direct), and within many foundations that support conservation initiatives. Over the last decade there has been a shift in the way in
which gender is considered within international conser- vation, including amongst the five largest conservation organizations: Conservation International, WWF, The Nature Conservancy, IUCN and the Wildlife Conservation Society (KW, pers. comm., 2020). Although many local conservation organizations (such as Wangari Maathai’s Greenbelt Movement) were built on the premise of women as conservation stewards, the international conser- vation movement has been slower to adopt a truly gender- responsive approach. With the exception of IUCN, many of these organizations have invested to only a minor degree in this area, and only within the last decade or less (KW, pers. comm., 2020). At Conservation International, the process of integrating
gender began with the establishment of the Conservation Initiative on Human Rights, a consortium of international conservation NGOs that seeks to improve the practice of conservation by promoting the integration of human rights in conservation policy and practice. The Initiative’s princi- ples on human rights were translated into organizational policies in
2012.At Conservation International this included a policy that calls for integration of gender into the project cycle. Shortly after the policy was designed, Conservation International launched a gender programme with dedicated funding to advance the policy’s aims. Although gender has been integrated into international
environmental agreements, environmental finance, and with- in large environmental organizations themselves through institutional policies, conservation practitioners too often continue to view it as an add-on donor requirement rather than a fundamental element of effective conservation. Spending funding and time on gender activities is often seen as diverting money and time away from conservation activities. This is also noted amongst international develop- ment institutions, where, despite gender mainstreaming policies ‘it is at the level of implementation that significant challenges remain’ (Moser & Moser, 2010,p. 15). In a call for better integration of social science into
conservation, Bennett et al. (2016) describe four barriers that apply to social science integration more broadly, but also to gender integration specifically: (1) ideology (conservation is viewed as an ecological rather than social process), (2) institutional priorities (e.g. area of forest con- served is prioritized over reducing gender gaps in natural resource management), (3) knowledge gaps (interdisciplinary training of conservation students does not adequately focus
on technical gender methods) and (4) lack of capacity (gen- der is often inadequately financed or staffed in conservation projects). To achieve effective gender-responsive conservation initiatives, it is important to understand how these barriers manifest in the context of conservation institutions, and to identify practical methods to reduce and overcome them. With a global presence and a diverse set of field-based conservation projects, Conservation International provides a suitable case study. Since 2014 Conservation International’s gender pro-
gramme has supported 15 field offices through 19 grants. Grants provided USD 2,250–13,000 (mean USD 9,600) and ran for 3–9 months (mean 6.6 months). Funding was distributed via a request-for-proposal system, with appli- cants submitting a 2-page proposal outlining a conserva- tion project within which they would apply Conservation International’s gender guidelines, or explore or apply gen- der research. The grants had three purposes: (1) to test Conservation International’s gender guidelines, a tool de- signed specifically for conservation practitioners to identify and respond to gender-related aspects of field-based con- servation initiatives, (2) to familiarize staff with gender concepts and strategies, helping to overcome the common assumption that only gender specialists can carry out these tasks, and (3) to create examples of gender-responsive conservation projects. In this case, gender-responsive pro- jects refer to conservation or development projects that have undertaken some sort of gender analysis to understand the roles and responsibilities of diverse women and men with respect to the project’s objectives, identified how women and men may benefit from, or be harmed by, the project’s activities, and have begun to implement measures to reduce or mitigate potential harm and proactively introduce activities to ensure that benefits are shared equitably. The 19 projects fell within three broad categories: (1)
conducting focus groups and interviews to examine the gender dynamics, roles and norms in existing conservation initiatives (Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Philippines), (2) systematic mainstreaming of gender into overall programmatic work such as programme gender strategies (Peru, Bolivia, Cambodia, Timor-Leste), and (3) building staff and partner capacity through training (Liberia, Indonesia). The Philippines project has been de- tailed in Tabangay & Westerman (2016). Here, we capture the results of these projects from the perspective of the conservation practitioners.
Study area
Projects sites were located in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, Ecuador-Galapagos, Suriname, Madagascar,
Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 853–859 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320001295
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