Re:wild: “Women in Conservation Leadership” Report Aligning with the Amazons Findings

A major new global study, Women in Conservation Leadership: A Global Landscape Study, was released in October 2025 by Re:wild in partnership with the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, offering a first-of-its-kind look at the realities facing women in conservation leadership worldwide.

Drawing on survey responses from over 800 women, a review of 95 leadership initiatives, and interviews with women leaders, the report paints a clear and compelling picture: women in conservation are highly educated, motivated, and experienced, yet systemic barriers continue to limit their representation and influence.

The limitations outlined in the research report include entrenched gender norms, inequitable access to resources and recognition, and cultural and institutional conditions that don’t support women’s long-term leadership.

The study places an emphasis on what women themselves say they need to thrive: safe spaces, mentorship, flexible and context-sensitive programming, and leadership training focused on communication, conflict management, and adaptive practices. It underscores that leadership must be understood beyond formal hierarchy recognizing “leadership from anywhere” as vital to global, collective conservation endeavours’ success.

This report says clearly: advancing women’s leadership isn’t just a matter of equity. It’s essential for achieving global biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development goals. When women lead, projects are more inclusive, resilient, and aligned with community needs.

This global perspective resonates strongly with the Amazons Project’s recent report, Analysis of Systemic Barriers Preventing Women from Becoming Environmental Leaders.

Our study recognized similar barriers in broader environmental leadership of women. We categorized them into four dimensions (structural, institutional, socio-cultural, and symbolic) demonstrating that limitations on women’s leadership are embedded e.g., in education pathways, organizational norms, gender stereotypes, and perceptions of credibility.

Both reports make it clear:

women aren’t absent from environmental leadership because of lack of ability; systemic barriers built into institutions, culture, and policy actively deter and constrain their participation.

The conservation sector, and the wider environmental movement, cannot afford to overlook the full contribution of women. These studies chart a roadmap for change that policymakers, funders, educators, and organizations can rally behind to build more equitable and effective leadership systems.

This roadmap for the increased future engagement of women needs to consider:

• Transformation of leadership development to be inclusive, flexible, and rooted in women’s lived experiences.
• Structural inequalities’ awareness, from education and resource access to unpaid care burdens and organizational expectations.
• New leadership models that value collaboration, care, and diverse ecological knowledge.

We hope that initiatives like those held at our organizations will contribute to the real transformation, but in order to make them meaningful, we need all hands on board.

We can prepare materials, we can promote the message, but if it is not implemented in practice… we reach nothing.

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