Women in Land Conservation
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Programs for women in conservation are elevating their voices, influence and thought leadership. If land trusts across the country adapted a version of these events for their own communities and needs, says Nackord, “It would be a powerful network of lights connected across the country, illuminating the power of women in conservation.”
Madeline Bodin is a freelance environmental writer and science journalist.
© 2024 Land Trust Alliance, Inc. All rights reserved.
Women in Ranching believes investing in women has huge value, as stated succinctly on their website: “Focusing on women drives change across families, ranches and entire communities. We are cultivating community, increasing equity, building power, expanding access and reshaping our future.”
And they are not alone. Programs and events across the country are addressing an important demographic: women with an active role in land conservation, whether as landowners, farmers, ranchers, foresters or conservation professionals.
For example, when it comes to farms, the 2022 U.S. Census of Agriculture found that 36% of farms in the United States are run by women and 58% have at least one female decisionmaker. Women who run farms are also more racially and ethnically diverse than farmers who are men, according to the American Farmland Trust’s report “The State of Gender Equity in U.S. Agriculture.”
“We need to recognize that everyone is of value,” says Ebonie Alexander, executive director of the Black Family Land Trust. “We need to be at the table, as women, as African Americans, as BIPOC.” There is no demographic that has no interest in land conservation, she says, even if sometimes that interest looks different than what land trusts have traditionally focused on.
Women-centered programs, says Kristie Nackord, vice president of external affairs for Palmer Land Conservancy, “elevate the power, influence and thought-leadership that women deliver in the conservation space — in a really fun way.”
These programs build camaraderie through annual conferences, luncheons and book clubs. They build skills through hands-on workshops. They spread knowledge through webinars, field trips and learning circles, which are peer-to-peer education and problem-solving events. Through all of these activities, they provide support, build confidence, hone leadership skills and broaden the diversity of voices speaking for the land.
Some of these programs were created by land trusts, while others have land trust staff as participants or in an advisory role. Still others are land-trust adjacent, supporting land conservation side by side with land trusts in their communities. In many cases, these programs welcome transgender, nonbinary and other-gendered people as well. All have something to say, and something to offer, to land trusts about working with women toward the goal of conserving land.
Creating community
Four times a year, Palmer Land Conservancy brings dozens of women together to share a meal, network and hear a speaker in Colorado Springs, Colorado. All of the speakers are enthusiastic about land conservation, but each sees it differently, perhaps through poetry, health care, government or architecture. For example, a recent speaker was the curator of history at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.
This Women in Action luncheon series is one of the programs connecting women to the land organized by Palmer Land Conservancy, an accredited land trust serving 19 counties in southern Colorado. In addition to the luncheons, Palmer hosts an annual evening event, Tenacity: Women in Conservation.
About 150 women — “and a few good guys,” says Nackord — mingle with appetizers and drinks before enjoying an on-stage interview and discussion celebrating conservation leaders. The discussion is moderated by Palmer’s CEO, Rebecca Jewett, a recognized leader in conservation herself. Jewett is a member of the Alliance’s Land Trust Leadership Council and a 2022 recipient of the City of Colorado Springs Mayor’s Young Leader Award. The Oprah-style question and answer session is both intimate and practical, Nackord says.
Both events sprouted from the most ambitious strategic plan in Palmer’s 47-year history, a plan that sees the organization growing its membership, its staff and its land portfolio, Nackord says. The luncheons and the evening celebration, she says, answer the question: How can we make conservation more relevant in people’s lives and move beyond our traditional audience, beyond landowners and people in the business of land conservation?
It’s important, then, that the events appeal to and attract an audience that is diverse, not just in gender, but in race, ethnicity and relationship to the land. Palmer addressed this from the start, Nackord says, by including a diverse group of speakers selected by a volunteer committee, which amplifies Palmer’s insights into the community and their social reach.
“As a woman, I have found that there’s nothing more powerful than a group of women coming together to effect change,” Nackord says.
“As a woman, I have found that there’s nothing more powerful than a group of women coming together to effect change.”
Building confidence
There is a magic that happens in the learning circles that American Farmland Trust’s Women for the Land initiative facilitates for a diversity of women across the country, says Gabrielle McNally , the program’s director. AFT Women for the Land learning circles are peer-to-peer learning opportunities that last about six hours on average—a whole day, including a field trip, a meal, training, discussion and an evaluation, McNally says.
Technical experts, who are women, if possible (“We are not dogmatic about it,” McNally says), are prepared by the organizers for the collaborative nature of the day. “We’re trying to break down hierarchies and create a shared learning experience for all the participants,” McNally says.
About 73% of the participants take action after attending a learning circle, McNally says. That action might be applying for a conservation grant or planting a cover crop. And while that is a success in itself, she says, building confidence to take those steps is the critical goal.
AFT ran programs for women for many years, but Women for the Land came together as a national initiative in 2019. Women for the Land provides learning opportunities, does research on women in agriculture and advocates for public policies that support women in agriculture.
Earlier this year, AFT released the research report “The State of Gender Equity in U.S. Agriculture.” The research found that women, especially Black, Indigenous, Latina, Asian and queer women, don’t have the same access to money, technical information and knowledgeable peers compared to their male counterparts in agriculture.
“The research we do informs our programming and how we can continue improving it, and also informs our policy advocacy,” says Caitlin Joseph, Women for the Land deputy director and lead author of the report. “The research really helps us pull together the evidence that policymakers want when they are thinking about making legislative changes.”
One of the ways Women for the Land has made its learning opportunities more inclusive is by focusing on specific communities of women. Four targeted outreach groups include women ranchers in Oregon responding to extreme weather, a tribal community in Northern California, women veterans in the Northwest and — in partnership with the Black Family Land Trust — African American women in North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.
Building relationships with historically underserved communities takes effort and humility, McNally says. “You have to recognize that you don’t know what you don’t know,” she says. “We are still learning, but taking the time to build relationships is fundamental to our approach.”
Finding solutions
“I deeply value having an opportunity for women to gather and discuss topics like habitat creation for grassland birds,” says Sarah Barron, the marketing and communications coordinator for The Prairie Enthusiasts, an accredited land trust based in Viroqua, Wisconsin, of the learning circles she has attended that were hosted by Wisconsin Women in Conservation. “I recall one member sharing how they have made expanding their grassland bird habitat work financially for their farm by creating a place for glamping (luxury camping) in the grassland.”
Participants in the WiWiC learning circles hosted by Sara George, the organization’s outreach coordinator, are asked “to share your favorite part of the land and the part of your land that gives the biggest headache.” From those headaches, solutions arise, George says.
In addition to TPE, other organizations that provide technical knowledge at the WiWiC learning circles include the Farm Service Agency and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Even in the presence of experts, George says, everybody’s knowledge and experience matters. Most of the participants are women in agriculture, she says, but not all; she recalls one woman who did incredible things with her small yard in town.
“Historically, it has been men whose voices represented these lands. But women have been working on the land as long as men have."
WiWiC’s structure is unusual. It’s made up of four organizations: Michael Fields Agricultural Institute; Wisconsin Farmers Union; Renewing the Countryside, a nonprofit supporting the rural food system; and Marbleseed, which advocates for organic and sustainable farming. Each organization chooses a regional coordinator who oversees a portion of the state. Funding comes from NRCS.
The collaborative’s goal is to raise awareness of conservation practices among women farmers and to assist them with getting resources such as NRCS funding for their conservation projects. The collaborative also hosts field days, webinars, happy hours, conferences and other networking events.
WiWiC has had over 1,400 women participate in person and 2,500 register for webinars. It has 3,000 newsletter subscribers and thousands follow its social media accounts. The program will expand its programming into 12 new Wisconsin counties this year.
“It’s amazing what’s happening, just amazing,” George says. And a neighboring state agrees: a new program modeled on WiWiC will now bring women in conservation together in Minnesota.
Developing leadership
In October 2022, more than 500 women with a connection to forests gathered in Minneapolis for the first Women’s Forest Congress. They came from 38 states, three Canadian provinces and eight other countries. Attendees could participate in forest bathing, a sensory connection to the forest; a chainsaw training workshop that dug into how chainsaw skills are taught; visits to local Native American sites; and a range of other activities. Then they attended conference sessions on topics such as community science, mentorship, working with volunteers and more. They discussed and revised the declarations that were presented by the Congress delegates.
“The Women’s Forest Congress was founded by a group of women who wanted an organization to provide leadership and career development opportunities for women in the forest sector,” says Dawn Simmons, vice president of people and culture at the American Forest Foundation, an organization that works with family-owned forests, and member of the WFC steering committee. “Most of the organizations in the forest sector have been white-male-driven. We wanted women of all perspectives to have a place to go where their voices could be heard.”
Because of that foundation, diversity, equity and inclusion are particularly important to WFC and were considered at every step of its creation. “The steering committee and advisory council are a diverse group of women who lent our collective experience and expertise to ensure that the first Women’s Forest Congress was accessible to all gender identity groups,” Simmons says.
The organization aims to reflect not only the diversity of women, transgender and nonbinary people, she says, but also the diversity of roles and experiences within the forest space.
Land trusts are represented by Ebonie Alexander of the Black Family Land Trust, who is on the WFC advisory council. Alexander was the Land Trust Alliance’s 2022 Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award winner and was the 2022-23 Kingsbury Browne Fellow for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “The woods have always meant shelter and comfort to me,” she says.
Alexander says that the Congress and its supporting events are places where people can learn what she believes is a key to working with diverse groups for land conservation. “People make choices based on the options they have available to them,”she says. “We all have different options, so what is a good choice for me may be a bad choice for you.”
Quarterly webinars furthering the resolutions discussed at the Congress have kept the conversation going long after the Congress ended.
Growing inclusivity
Women in Ranching was built on the principle that ranchers and women are excellent stewards of the land. The organization was founded by two California ranchers, Elaine Patarini of Paicines Ranch and Wendy Millet of TomKat Ranch. Millet has worked as a rancher, at a land trust and at an educational ranch.
Millet says the organization started with a casual conversation in 2016, when she and Patarini invited some friends to talk about the challenges of being women in agriculture. The one-time gathering was so successful that soon it became a regular event, and then an organization that has served about 2,600 women. Montana rancher Amber Smith attended a Women in Ranching gathering (which resembles a learning circle) in California. She wanted her Montana friends to have the same experience. She began volunteering with the organization, which was then operating under the Western Landowners Alliance. Before Smith knew it, she was the organization’s executive director.
The 2020 pandemic was a serious challenge for an organization that brought women together in person. “I didn’t think ranching women would sit in front of a computer,” Smith says. But the virtual events turned out to be successful, and not only because they were well attended.
With no geographic barriers, Women in Ranching diversified the thought leaders invited to events, which, in addition to gatherings, include a book club, an annual “confluence,” skillbuilding workshops and more. In 2021, Smith began to think, “this thing could stand on its own feet,” and preparations were made to become an independent organization.
“What would it look like to bring on a board that reflects the people who are showing up as participants?” Smith asked as the organization expanded its board from four to 11 members. To do that, Smith and Women in Ranching’s board of directors set up a matrix of 17 criteria to make sure their new board candidates spanned the experience of women ranchers. The women they invited were eager to join.
The new board met in person, in Montana, for the first time in July 2023. “I could not be more proud of that process,” Smith says. “I could not be more proud of the results.”
Making connections
These programs offer something that is not found elsewhere. “Women landowners often don’t get their voices heard,” says George. “In our group, we listen. We hear. There’s support.
There’s networking. There’s communication. There’s shared lessons learned. It’s amazing when we all come together.”
If land trusts across the country adapted a version of these events for their own communities and needs, says Nackord, “It would be a powerful network of lights connected across the country, illuminating the power of women in conservation.”
