Beginning with the good, women are already at the forefront of worldwide environmental and climate-related campaigns. More so, young women. Think Great Thunberg, and the movement she sparked amongst school kids. Girls and boys showed up with loud voices and strong messages on the streets across the world without talk of who does it best. The prize of being heard by the government was so great that one didn’t need to silence young women, and young women had no time to be silenced. We were loud and proud.

More women are seen in the media supporting planet-friendly living, and sustainable fashion, and using their innate qualities of being caring, selfless, and gentle towards our natural world to their advantage rather than allowing them to be used against them. More women are starting to fill up the room (or farm or field).

However, it’s important not to ignore the fact that this is not the case everywhere/across all workplaces. Even within research, such as the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), women make up just a third of the publicising authors. So, while we celebrate women on the face of nature and environmental outreach, let’s highlight how much women are providing scientific data needed for all roles in this sector.

Finishing off with a quote from a blog that demands to be read by The Nature Conservancy, titled ‘We can’t save the planet without women’: “Someday, this article won’t have to be written (…). Someday, we will get to the point where we won’t have to ask what it’s like being a woman working alone in nature or the only woman in a boardroom (…). To get to that day, we must elevate the women doing amazing conservation work so that other women will realize, “I can do that, too.”

Following this, read SWT’s inspiring blog post showcasing the hard-working women making a huge difference in the county area. https://www.surreywildlifetrust.org/blog/surrey-wildlife-trust/international-womens-day-celebrating-women-conservation

One more interesting blog to share is about Ecofeminism, a movement within feminism beginning over 40 years ago and questions what “man-made” mean for nature and what more can be done for nature if women played a bigger role. https://earth.org/ecofeminism/

By Ness Beal, Surrey Wildlife Trust Placement Student