The John Hartley Churchill Fellowship to investigate ways to increase employment of Indigenous women as rangers

Indigenous ranger programs employ traditional owners to work on their country. There are many barriers to the employment of Indigenous women as rangers, but strong evidence that increasing their numbers benefits individual women, their communities, and their country. Despite this, employment of women is not a priority and little research on how to achieve it. I will investigate how other post-colonial countries employ Indigenous women as rangers and document transferable lessons to the Australian context regarding:

• policies & programs to employ women
• recruitment & retention in a male dominated field
• managing family commitments & cultural consideration
• flow-on benefits achieved by employing women

Keywords: Indigenous, women, rangers, conservation, environment, employment, equality