Effectively managed MPAs have the potential to help coastal communities adapt to climate change and progress the 2015 Paris Agreement, which first established a global goal for adaptation to climate change. The Paris Agreement, ratified by 185 countries, makes a direct link between climate change and human rights, poverty eradication and sustainable development (UNDP, 2017). It also recognizes that women, men and children experience climate impacts differently and acknowledges the importance of considering gender equality and women’s empowerment in climate change adaptation plans.

MPAs can build adaptation and resilience to climate change by reducing additional stressors to marine ecosystems and the resources they provide (e.g., reducing overfishing and overharvesting of resources such as mangroves for firewood) and by promoting sustainable livelihood options.

Intentionally including women in MPA planning and management increases the success of education and advocacy efforts, builds community buy-in for MPAs, improves the lives of women and girls, and helps build an enduring community conservation ethic. However, most women face barriers to participating fully in the planning and management of marine resources and are underrepresented in leadership as well as day-to-day management roles for MPAs.

Barriers to the inclusion of women can be institutional, educational and/or cultural and can profoundly influence decision-making that affects the welfare of marine resources and coastal communities (Clabots, 2013).

Here we explain the importance of considering gender in MPA management and climate adaptation and provide guidelines and recommendations for MPA managers to implement in new and existing work. While we discuss gender as a binary concept (women/men) for the purpose of this piece, we acknowledge and respect that this does not reflect the lived experience of many people. UNFPA (2005) defines gender as “the roles and responsibilities of men and women that are created in our families, our societies, and our cultures” – these roles are culturally dependent, and change over time – that is, they are not biologically inherent.

Figure 1. Men and women undertaking MPA planning in Papua New Guinea. Copyright by TNC. Reproduced with permission.

Gender equity and MPAs

Gender equality is a fundamental human right.

Gender equality is the goal of equal rights, responsibilities and opportunity across genders.
Gender equity focuses on the processes necessary to achieve equality.

“Gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, strategies and measures must often be available to compensate for women’s historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men from otherwise operating on a level playing field. Equity leads to equality” (UNFPA, 2005).

MPA managers, climate change experts and other conservationists can adopt gender equity approaches that seek to address existing disadvantages, inequalities or unfair treatment (primarily experienced by women) through conservation project design. This integrated approach can help achieve global commitments to both gender equality and climate adaptation, which are inextricably linked.

Figure 2. Women collecting sandfish to dry and sell in a local MPA in Pere, Papua New Guinea. Copyright by Justine Hausheer (TNC). Reproduced with permission.

Poverty and gender inequality contribute directly to climate change vulnerability in several ways:

Successful adaptation often requires resources and assets, yet women are more likely to be poor than men during peak reproductive ages (20-34) due to bearing children and leaving the labour market in response to demands of unpaid caregiving work.
Women tend to be more dependent on natural resources (e.g., growing and harvesting food, collecting water) – which are subject to climate impacts – for their livelihoods and welfare.
Disparities in economic opportunities and access to productive resources also render women more vulnerable to climate change.
In coastal communities, women often receive less education and are not involved in political, community and household decision-making processes.
Women are more likely to die than men in many types of natural disasters. Contributing factors include, but are not limited to, women and girls: Not being taught survival skills (e.g., swimming, boating, tree climbing); Having limited access to technology (e.g., fishing equipment, boats, training, etc.) to adjust their livelihoods to a severe change in climatic conditions.

Investing in women and gender-responsive conservation approaches can have enormously positive benefits for communities and marine resource management. Women often have different knowledge and skills regarding food production, climate patterns and natural resource management, and they develop coping strategies based on the local environment and conditions. Women are central to socioeconomic development in their productive, reproductive and community management roles. For example, women are often the primary caretakers of children in coastal communities (Pravalprukskul & Resurreccion, 2018) and can offer very different insights into whole-family time management. They also often manage the processing and distribution side of local fisheries and have a detailed knowledge of customary market practices. Women may also experience increased exposure to gender-based violence during the selling process. This knowledge will not be considered in MPA management if only men are involved.

What does this mean for the management of marine resources and MPAs? With limited resources available for MPA management and adaptation, particularly in developing countries, it is vital that investments reach the most vulnerable women, men and children and make a commitment to “do no harm”. Adaptation and management actions taken without a proper understanding of gender issues can unintentionally amplify gender inequalities, leading to detrimental effects. For example, a conservation strategy might consider promoting women into paid MPA jobs in the hopes of contributing to local gender equality. However, household wealth distribution practices may dictate that women must give their earnings to their husbands – and if women still face the burden of having to spend long hours providing food for the family on top of their MPA job, then gender inequalities may be amplified.

Limitations

A number of enduring assumptions and misconceptions present barriers to gender-inclusive MPA management and climate adaptation (Lau et al., 2021):

Assumption: Climate change, MPA strategies and marine resource management are about science, so it has nothing to do with gender issues. Everyone will benefit.

Reality: Even the most technical aspects of marine resource management – such as scenarios for modelling the impact of climate change on Pacific fisheries – have gender implications. For example, women tend to fish closer to the shore, while men tend to fish out in the deeper waters, which are more likely to be impacted as geographical shifts in fisheries occur due to climate change.

By considering the viewpoints and perspectives of all genders, a climate change initiative will benefit from this holistic understanding of what the community needs are, what climate impacts they are already seeing, and possible ways of addressing them.

Assumption

Gender roles are fixed and informed by culture. It’s not our job to change traditions.
Reality

All cultures are constantly changing. Social norms and gender roles change in response to broader social, economic and political factors, and can be shaped intentionally. For example, international agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) help countries to determine what behaviour is no longer acceptable.

Understanding the dynamic context in which culture shapes gender roles can help us identify opportunities to strengthen the positive engagement of men and women.

Assumption: Gender-based violence has nothing to do with climate change or MPA management.

Reality: Violence against women increases in times of stress. Climate change stresses ecosystems, economies, markets and secure housing through increased acute weather events, such as tropical cyclones and floods, and slow-onset impacts, such as droughts and pressures on marine resources.

In addition, as women gain autonomy, independence, knowledge or power by engaging in MPA or climate adaptation efforts, they may risk an initial backlash from men who feel threatened by a shift in power and autonomy. We also know that women rangers face threats of violence and harassment, especially when they are in remote locations with larger patrol groups populated by only men (Seager, Bowser and Dutta, 2021).

How to apply a gender lens to MPAs

Conducting a gender analysis is a crucial step to help you to better understand:

Gender roles in the community
Gender differences in marine resource management
Gender differences in climate impacts

Ideally you should conduct a gender analysis at the start of a project, but it can be completed at any point in the process.

A gender analysis for MPA management seeks to answer “who, what, where, when and why” across six core themes:

Division of labour
Access to marine natural resources
Benefit-sharing from marine natural resources
Access to information
Opportunities for participation in MPA management
Decision-making and control of MPA management (power structures).

Table 1: Primary gender analysis questions for MPA managers

For the primary gender analysis, research can begin with a desktop analysis of publicly available, gender-disaggregated data, which includes the community and area where the MPA is located. Then a more detailed analysis can be constructed with primary data, preferably collected by a gender expert or local community expert in the local language. Specific questions for a detailed gender analysis relating to MPA management and climate resilience can include:

Which men and which women hold the power in this community?
What are the different levels of participation and leadership undertaken by women and men in their community?
What activities are performed by women and men in the home? Outside the home? How are these activities different between boys and girls?
What is the division of labour among women and men?
Who makes the decisions? Who sets the agenda for MPA management?
How will climate change affect the abilities of women and men to fulfil their differing responsibilities?
Who has access to information? Who is able to contribute information to community discussion?
Who owns and controls the marine resources? What are the different levels of access to and control over marine resources for women and men?
Who gains and who loses from the development and implementation of an MPA?
What are the different roles, skills, capacities and aspirations of women, men, boys and girls? Who has the most opportunity for paid employment (e.g., marine rangers)?
What are the different levels of access to and control over key productive, information and technology resources?
What is the different local knowledge possessed by women and men concerning marine resources? This may include climate change-relevant information on risk, adaptation, and mitigation.

Based on these analyses, it’s then possible to build more targeted actions to incorporate gender equity and women’s empowerment into MPA planning and management plans, policies and budgets.

Moving away from “tokenistic” representation of women in decision-making processes involves specific analysis of the structural issues limiting participation. It involves working with men to help them to feel comfortable for women to speak, contribute and freely express their opinions.

Gender action plans must be specific to the MPA and community. You may need to:

Plan and budget for gender sensitivity training for staff.
Develop a gender policy and agree on simple strategies. For example, where culturally acceptable, address men and women in the same way and accept that men can serve tea, be receptionists and file letters, while women can be wardens and boat drivers.
After learning about the gender structures of local communities, find out why women may not participate as much as men. Address this by asking both women and men for solutions. Proceed gradually and gain the support of men as well.
Leverage women’s knowledge about marine biodiversity and climate variation into MPA management plans (e.g., their role in post-harvest activities such as gutting fish may give them greater knowledge about fish reproductive seasons).
Ensure equitable participation in all activities, including training, of both stakeholders and staff (recognizing that participation should never be mandatory). This may mean: Budgeting for childcare - Scheduling meetings to suit women (e.g., not at traditional men’s meeting places or at times when women are typically busy with other activities) - Using single-gender focus groups or separate meetings with men and women - Engaging facilitators of different genders.
Monitor how women and men participate in and benefit from MPA management. Keep gender-disaggregated data on all employment, volunteer roles, training, enterprise group loans and meetings, in order to determine trends in proportions of budgets spent on and participation across genders.
Encourage and support men (including those in leadership roles) to understand their responsibility to promote gender equality.
Proactively seek out and engage with appropriate women’s rights organizations and women community leaders when selecting MPA partners.

These recommendations can feel different to the standard guidance for MPA planning and management, which may focus more on the biological sciences for measuring the effectiveness of a protected area. However, these social science approaches are key to intentionally including women in MPA management and ultimately creating stronger conservation programmes.

All of these efforts require dedicated time, resources and expertise. These processes are vital to ensure that, at the very minimum, we are not doing harm. By meaningfully addressing gender in MPA management, we will achieve positive outcomes for biodiversity, climate, economies and society.