Warlpiri experiences highlight challenges and opportunities for gender equity in Indigenous conservation management in arid Australia

Prevalent belief systems in Australia, and many other developed countries, are gender blind in that they fail to recognize differences between men's and women's needs, interests, knowledges, behaviors and power. Monitoring of Australian Indigenous conservation programs shows that an increasing proportion of Indigenous community-based rangers are women. However factors that might explain and support this trend cannot be readily identified because little or no attention to gender is apparent in program design and project planning. Gender-aware design of conservation management policies, programs and projects is important for challenging and changing gender blindness. Brokers and bridging institutions, or 'two-way' approaches, have been important in progressing cross-cultural equity in the implementation of Australian Indigenous conservation partnerships and can be expected to be also valuable for promoting gender equity.