Meet the scientist helping women find their voice

In a community center in rural Madagascar, Kame Westerman noticed something that changed her career.

As the men debated the closure of an octopus fishery, the women — who stood to gain or lose the most from the decision — were silent.

“They either weren’t included in the decision-making or didn’t feel comfortable engaging in the discussion,” Westerman recalled of that day a dozen years ago.

“I’d spent years working in community-based conservation,” she said, “but I’d never noticed the gender imbalance in resource management so clearly.”

That realization reshaped her work.

Westerman went on to establish Conservation International’s gender program and has spent more than a decade working with teams in the field to craft practical, culturally sensitive ways to bring women and men equally into conservation.

Conservation News recently sat down with Westerman, who discussed the challenges women continue to face — and her hopes for achieving more inclusive conservation around the world.

© Kame Westerman

During her career, Kame Westerman has seen women’s engagement and leadership become a cornerstone of effective conservation.

Conservation News: Tell me about that “aha!” moment that helped focus your career. 

Kame Westerman: I was working on the southwestern coast of Madagascar, an area where octopus was the main source of income for local people — the Vezo, who are known as incredible seafarers. While the men sailed their outrigger
canoes into deep waters at the crack of dawn, women would wait onshore for the tide to recede. There, they would gather their children and well-used spears and venture to the reef flats to patiently coax octopus from their burrows.

One day, I attended a meeting at a local community center. The community leaders from across the region were there to talk about the annual closure of the reef flats — something they had done for years to allow the octopus fishery to recover. When
the facilitator called to the back of the room with a question, I noticed a handful of women huddled on the bench. Tending to the babies and small children on their laps, they seemed hesitant to respond in the large group.

But wait, I thought, harvesting octopus on the reef flats was mainly women’s work. This discussion about closing the octopus fishery was going to impact these women directly.

That experience really opened my eyes to the fact that men and women use natural resources differently, and therefore
have different perspectives on conservation. At the same time, this notion that community leaders, who are often male, speak for all community interests is a fallacy that conservation routinely falls into.

What does your work entail, day to day? 

KW: Much of my work focuses on helping colleagues around the world integrate gender into their projects’ design and implementation — from building skills for local partners, to advising on project design, to finding creative
ways to support women’s leadership.

We believe that diverse decision-making is key to more effective conservation. My job is to help my colleagues find ways to do just that. One way is by creating spaces for women leaders to come together to learn from and mentor each other. We’re
doing this now with women park rangers across several African countries.

Another way is by developing new income opportunities focused on resources that women traditionally use. That varies depending on the place: In Palau, it’s giant clams; in Fiji, seaweed; and in Liberia, selling fish.

We’re also trying to make sure that important changes — like providing child care during meetings — are integrated into our projects to ensure women’s participation.

How has this field evolved since you started working in it? 

KW: There’s been a big shift. Ten years ago, gender in conservation was a fringe issue. Just a handful of people — women mostly — were talking about it. When Conservation International hired me, I was one of the only
people at an environmental organization with a full-time position and funding for a gender program. Now, all the big environmental nonprofits have gender policies and programs. We are building gender into the fabric of how we do conservation —
we use analyses that help us better understand gender dynamics, and we develop specific activities that support women’s engagement and leadership.

The million-dollar question I used to get all the time is, “Where’s the evidence? Show me that investing in gender-related activities is going to result in better conservation outcomes.” I used to get that question a lot, and I don’t as much
anymore.

Do you think it’s a valid question?

KW: As a conservation organization, everything we do should move the needle in terms of protecting nature. And a growing number of studies show that conservation outcomes are better when women are involved.

Where it stops me a bit is that no one ever asks, “Is good stakeholder engagement important? Or do I really have to engage Indigenous Peoples in my project?”

For some reason, it’s ok to ask, “Do I need to engage women?”

I think we’re beyond making the case for why it’s important. Now we’re asking how do we do it effectively and equitably?

Are you seeing new issues crop up?

KW: One of the things we’re starting to talk about more is gender-based violence — which happens in communities worldwide and infringes on women’s ability to become conservation leaders. Also, how gender-based violence
is exacerbated by climate change and perpetuated by environmental degradation.

I encourage teams to understand how gender-based violence can come up in the context of our work — as part of the complex social norms of a community and sometimes even as a consequence of our interventions. This means mapping out support services,
such as health centers, civil society organizations and local women’s groups.

What’s next for your work?

KW: We’re diving deeper to try to address deep-rooted inequities, which can be incredibly overwhelming. It’s a recognition that we need systemic changes if we’re going to achieve gender inclusive and gender equitable
conservation.

The biggest opportunities — where the funding is right now — are in climate finance. If gender equality is not central to how financing for climate mitigation and adaptation is designed, there’s a real risk of perpetuating discrimination.

I know it may sound cliché, but I’ve seen it time and again: Invest in one woman and that ripples out to her family, her community and beyond. It changes people’s lives.

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Vanessa Bauza is the senior communications director at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates. Also, please consider supporting our critical work.