Editorial: Women in human-wildlife dynamics: 2021 [original]

Editorial: Women in human-

wildlife dynamics: 2021

K. Whitehouse-Tedd

*, T.M. Straka

,B.Frank

and S. Snyman

4,5

Toitu

¯Envirocare, Auckland, New Zealand,

Institute of Ecology, Technische Universität Berlin,

Berlin, Germany,

World Wildlife Fund Canada & School of Environmental Studies, University of

Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada,

African Leadership University, School of Wildlife Conservation,

Kigali, Rwanda,

School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South

Africa

KEYWORDS

women, equality, human-wildlife, conservation, perspective

Editorial on the Research Topic

Women in human-wildlife dynamics: 2021

Fewer than a third of the world’s researchers identify as women (Marescotti et al.,

2022). Historical and on-going biases, gender stereotypes and other barriers discourage

women from entering science-related ﬁelds. Barriers come in all shapes and sizes and may

often be unintended. Recent research by Huang et al. (2020) has revealed an increasing

gender-based gap in publications, associated with high rates of career drop-outs among

women. Eagly (2020) expands on this to consider the unequal impact of parenthood, the

higher proportion of women in teaching roles within academia (where teaching

productivity is typically inversely related to research productivity), and the issue of

disproportionate access to (or bias against) internal and external funding, laboratory

space, and other resources faced by women researchers. Outside of research, women in

conservation face equivalent challenges to career progression and equality in this

profession (Jones and Solomon, 2019). Focusing on the conservation ﬁeld of human-

wildlife dynamics (HWD), this special issue provided a platform to better understand the

roles and challenges for women in HWD as:

•community members and/or leaders living with wildlife;

•practitioners and/or researchers working with others who live with wildlife;

•advocates, educators, artists and/or innovators for people and wildlife.

We invited formats such as storytelling narratives, and biographies which do not easily

conform to scientiﬁc publishing. However, this facilitated more personal and professional

insights into authors’experiences within the ﬁeld of human-wildlife dynamics, which are

largely invisible in empirical research. Guidance on reviewing atypical article types is rare

within the natural science literature (but see Byrne, 2016) and we are extremely grateful to

our reviewers in this process. Here are the highlights of the ‘Women in Human-Wildlife

Dynamics”series of article collection

Frontiers in Conservation Science frontiersin.org01

OPEN ACCESS

EDITED AND REVIEWED BY

Ana Rainho,

University of Lisbon, Portugal

*CORRESPONDENCE

K. Whitehouse-Tedd

[email protected]

SPECIALTY SECTION

This article was submitted to

Human-Wildlife Interactions,

a section of the journal

Frontiers in Conservation Science

RECEIVED 20 March 2023

ACCEPTED 21 April 2023

PUBLISHED 09 May 2023

CITATION

Whitehouse-Tedd K, Straka TM, Frank B

and Snyman S (2023) Editorial: Women in

human-wildlife dynamics: 2021.

Front. Conserv. Sci. 4:1189903.

doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2023.1189903

Snyman. This is an open-access article

distributed under the terms of the Creative

Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The

use, distribution or reproduction in other

forums is permitted, provided the original

author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are

credited and that the original publication in

this journal is cited, in accordance with

accepted academic practice. No use,

distribution or reproduction is permitted

which does not comply with these terms.

TYPE Editorial

PUBLISHED 09 May 2023

DOI 10.3389/fcosc.2023.1189903

Women as professionals, mentors and

volunteers in human-wildlife

interventions

Almuna et al. share in their opinion piece their role as female

professionals and facilitators in situations that address human-

wildlife dynamics in rural landscapes of Chile. They compare

their experiences across regions in Chile and emphasize the need

for a gender-balanced perspective in conservation. Sheherazade

et al. share their lessons learned in woman-to-woman mentorship

in Indonesia. While the perspectives that authors share is based on

their own experiences, the community case study article compares

these experiences with the broader literature on mentor- and

leadership. In Namibia, Marker et al., use the Cheetah

Conservation Fund’s long-standing volunteer programme to

highlight a substantial gender-bias in the volunteering sector, at

least for this conservation organisation. Although this bias appears

in favour of women, this skewed representation unlikely favours

women in conservation. Participants in Marker et al.‘ssurvey

revealed challenges they’ve faced in their career, namely their

personal safety and credibility, and the integral role that

volunteering has played for them in gaining employment. They

emphasize the ﬁnancial implications and barriers that this poses to

future conservationists including the high risk that women without

the ﬁnancial means to undertake voluntary work may result in them

being excluded from conservation.

Women as practitioners and

community members

In Mongolia and India, Alexander et al. draw from their

knowledge and experience in snow leopard conservation to

describe the roles and responsibilities of women in livestock

management and agriculture, and how those intersect with

biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management. The case

studies showcase how community-based conservation often builds

on existing community structures and social norms, which often

neglects women’s roles, rights and decision-making power on

biodiversity conservation. In parallel, Akayezu et al. investigated

the effectiveness of tourism revenue in counterbalancing

unsustainable resource use in Rwandan forest communities.

These authors draw to our attention the importance of gendered

community roles and the different functions that men and women

play in activities of conservation concern, meaning that a more

nuanced approach to conservation initiatives are likely to be more

impactful. Leong et al. raise a similar concern with regards to

stakeholder views on bat conservation in Singapore. Although none

of these authors set out to explore the role of gender in human-

wildlife dynamics speciﬁcally, their ﬁndings regarding gender

inequality and gender-based differences in roles or impacts,

highlight the need for more focused research in this area.

Women at the interface of wildlife

trade, recreation and governance

In her contribution, Davis focuses on women’s roles in illegal

wildlife trade in Southeast Asia, with a speciﬁc lens on social drivers

and processes of hunting and consumption of wildlife. While

women play a fundamental role in Southeast Asia resident

matrilineal and bilateral societies and can be fundamental in

initiating change in conservation practices, their role is often

overlooked in research. Green et al. reviewed 40 case studies from

34 countries on community-based approaches that target illegal

wildlife trade of Felidae species. Based on a ‘Theory of Change’

framework, they synthesized approaches, successes, challenges and

recommendations for community action on illegal wildlife trade.

In regard to governance and law enforcement, Sommerville et al.

provide a community case study of activities to increase women’s

effective participation in wildlife in Zambia. The case study highlights

that proactive steps to include and empower women in terms of

wildlife governance and beneﬁt-sharing yield improvements in terms

of representation, access and in the sharing of beneﬁts. Likewise, in a

north American context, Rizzolo et al. researched visitors’recreational

patterns in wildlife refuges in the United States and showcase how

changes in consumptive activities regulation can cause differential and

inequitable impacts on different groups of people participating in

nature-based activities. Understanding how subgroups of visitors

may respond to regulatory changes, especially women, is therefore

important to avoid the displacement or alienation of such groups from

visiting a site.

As an all-women editorial team, the need for patience, support

and understanding was an unspoken agreement as we each battled

to balance elusive work-life balance and carving out time for this

voluntary editorial work. We are therefore thrilled to see this

collaboration culminate in a collection of ten excellent articles for

this Research Topic.

The authors’diverse perspectives on gender equality in HWD

and conservation highlight the complexity of the topic. Effective

policies and practices require empirical data and practitioner

insights regarding what works and what does not (Sutherland,

2022). We call on researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to

prioritize gender equality in conservation and collaborate to

implement evidence-based solutions.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual

contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

Conﬂict of interest

Author KW-T was employed by company Toitu Envirocare.

The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted

in the absence of any commercial or ﬁnancial relationships that

could be construed as a potential conﬂict of interest.

Whitehouse-Tedd et al. 10.3389/fcosc.2023.1189903

Frontiers in Conservation Science frontiersin.org02

Publisher’s note

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References

Byrne, J. A. (2016). Improving the peer review of narrative literature reviews. Res.

Integr. Peer Rev. 1, 12. doi: 10.1186/s41073-016-0019-2

Eagly, A. H. (2020). Do the social roles that women and men occupy in science allow equal

access to publication? Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 117 (11), 5553–5555. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2001684117

Huang, J., Gates, A. J., Sinatra, R., and Barabasi, A.-L. (2020). Historical comparison

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Acad. Sci. 117 (9), 4609–4616. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1914221117

Jones, M. S., and Solomon, J. (2019). Challenges and supports for women

conservation leaders. Cons. Sci. Pract. 1, e36. doi: 10.1111/csp2.36

Marescotti, M., Loreto, F., and Spires-Jones, T. L. (2022). Gender representation

in science publication: evidence from brain communications. Brain Comm. 4(3),

fcac077. doi: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac077

Sutherland, W. (2022). Transforming conservation: a practical and guide to evidence

and decision making. (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers).

Whitehouse-Tedd et al. 10.3389/fcosc.2023.1189903

Frontiers in Conservation Science frontiersin.org03