Protected areas are critical strategies to secure biodiversity conservation and human well-being. They are also opportunities to act on, and model, sustainable development goals and Aichi targets such as gender equity and equitable management. This study explores the meaning and perceived impact of boosting women’s participation on the management of the World Heritage Site Serra da Capivara National Park on social and conservation outcomes. The Park provides a good opportunity for studying gender equity in conservation settings because of a gender-responsive labor policy implemented in 2002 that resulted in a hundred women, previously in vulnerable conditions regarding poverty, labor, and domestic violence, hired in legitimate jobs to execute activities in administration, surveillance, land and road maintenance, and gatekeeping. Through in-depth interviews with women and men from field workers to administrators of the protected area, we aimed to know the perceived impact of a gender-responsive labor policy on individuals, their families, and local communities in terms of shifts in gender norms and expectations, women’s access to assets and entrepreneurial opportunities, and conservation attitudes, behaviors, and engagement.
Results/Conclusions
Our findings suggest that women accrued individual-level benefits from the implementation of the gender-responsive labor policy such as increased self-confidence, personal skills, access to income, and self-efficacy. At the household-level, interviewees reported impacts on women’s stronger decision making role about budget decisions and expenditure patterns of household income. A prominent theme was investment, specifically in improving living conditions, building or renovating their homes, saving money for health needs, ensuring their children's education, and creating a business. At the community-level, the financial independence of several women seemed to have catalyzed important changes in their social role and in discouraging violence against women. Among the identified themes connected to the perceived impacts on conservation outcomes were: a) awareness; understanding of the Park’s value, threats, and conservation; b) values, endorsing values and concerns about conservation in their relationships (e.g parenting or venturing); and c) behavior, stopping and advocating against poaching, and adopting organizational citizenship behaviors. By documenting the Serra da Capivara National Park case, we add to the growing literature focused on framing equitable alternative livelihood as a critical component for effective protected areas management, and on mainstreaming gender concerns into conservation.