Interview with Lidia Paz Hidalgo, an expert on seed biodiversity and agrobiodiversity, who works with the Bolivian NGO CENDA, the Centre for Communication and Andean Development.
From 21 October to 1 November, governments met in Cali, Colombia for the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (the so-called CBD COP16). It was the first COP meeting since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022 at COP15, a framework that sets out an ambitious pathway to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. This year’s negotiations focused on how to advance the implementation of this Framework.
Indigenous peoples and local communities play an irreplaceable role in preserving and restoring biodiversity. Their unique knowledge systems, beliefs, and traditional practices – including the sustainable use of land, rotational grazing, and a deep spiritual connection to nature – have long contributed to the health of ecosystems.1 The Global Biodiversity Framework acknowledges the important roles and contributions of indigenous peoples and local communities as custodians of biodiversity and as partners in its conservation, restoration and sustainable use 2 and considers the diverse value systems and concepts represented by them. At the time of its adoption, Parties to the CBD also recognised the importance of advancing efforts to achieve gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment to ensure the effective implementation of the Framework. Because, globally, women and girls in all their diversity, particularly from Indigenous Peoples and local communities, rely on healthy ecosystems and play vital roles in the management and conservation of biodiversity as they draw on gender-specific knowledge.
1 See also Protecting human rights of indigenous peoples and local communities to halt biodiversity loss, CIDSE, 2024.
2 15/4. Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework – Section C, 7, a.
In this context, we asked Lidia Paz Hidalgo, who works with the Bolivian NGO CENDA, about the vital role and contributions of indigenous and local community women as biodiversity custodians and why it is crucial that their voices are heard in biodiversity spaces at different levels.
Indigenous and local community women play a vital role as guardians and defenders of biodiversity, could you give us some examples based on your work and experience?

Both in rural and urban communities, women play a very important role in conservation and management of biodiversity. Seeds, for example, play a central role in biodiversity conservation and women are the ones in charge of saving, conserving and breeding seeds. Women prefer to have a diversity of seeds, which they obtain in various ways: from being passed on from generation to generation at different times of life (like marriage or cohabitation), work in harvesting (i.e. where the person is remunerated with the seeds or paid with part of the production) or through barter or exchange. Women are also by nature collectors of many seeds.
In one of the indigenous communities I work, women seek to diversify their production to guarantee food for their family and to generate some surplus that they sell at the local market/fair. A woman I know manages approximately 35 species of different crops. She participates in different seed meetings organised by CENDA, where seeds are exchanged and gifted. Her two daughters, aged 4 and 14, participate as well and you can see them already taking an interest in the management and care for seeds.
What are the specific challenges faced by indigenous and local community women in biodiversity conservation?
There are several challenges, which include consumer preferences, the impact of climate change, state policies and migration.
- The first one, consumer preferences, is a very important one in several cases, mainly for those varieties and/or species of crops that are not well known in the market. Consumers prefer those that are better known, as is the case, for example, with potatoes. There are a few potato varieties such as Waycha, Desiree and Pinta Boca that are very commercial; however, there are many other varieties with different nutritional properties, flavors, colors, etc. that often remain in the communities as they are not as well-known to consumers. In some cases, their cultivation is even forgotten.
- Some varieties are also ceasing to be cultivated due to changing climatic patterns and conditions, some of them adapt very well to climatic conditions such as drought, frost, hailstorms or pests/disease attacks, so their cultivation holds a guarantee in terms of food security and sovereignty; while others are very susceptible to changes, as they require a lot of water, for example, or have a longer growth cycle, which leads families to select their varieties and/or species accordingly.
- State policies: there are few crops and varieties called commodities that are promoted by state programmes that are aimed at greater use of certified seed, aiming at monoculture or monovarietal cultivation, which jeopardises the existing diversity in the communities.
- Migration from the countryside to the cities is another challenge, which is closely linked to children’s education. When no education is provided in the community beyond the 6th grade of primary school, women are usually forced to move to the cities so that their children can continue studying. This results in an often-drastic change in livelihood, because women who were before dedicated to the management and care of biodiversity, are forced to change their way of life, turning from producers into housewives or traders.
Do you feel indigenous and local knowledge, expertise and insights on biodiversity conservation are sufficiently valued and promoted e.g. by policy and decisionmakers at various levels?
In Bolivia, laws and decrees exist3 recognising knowledge collected from ancestors seeking to conserve and promote biodiversity. However, they are not applied or promoted in a committed way. There is indigenous and local knowledge and wisdom that is part of the intrinsic culture of every human being but there is a lack of political decisions and resources to put them into practice.
3 E.g. Bolivia Law No. 300 Framework of Mother Earth and Integral Development to Live Well and the Plurinational system for the Certification of competencies
What are the risks and impacts of the agri-business industry/ transnational corporations on women’s role as biodiversity custodians?
The agri-food industry and transnational corporations are focused on promoting monocultures, for which they allocate large amounts of resources on research, the creation of new varieties, the promotion of processed foods to consumers, the introduction of “technological” packages from the green revolution. All of these have detrimental impacts on peasant communities, the most vulnerable being women, who in many cases do not have enough information or the means to cope with all these threats and risks.
In your experience, are the voices of women being heard in policies (at different levels) that support conservation of (agro)biodiversity?
In the communities where I work, I have witnessed interesting changes. More and more, women’s voices are being heard both within the organisations and at the local government level. However, for this to happen, a process of awareness raising through training and formation is necessary. For women to become aware that they also have rights and one of the most important ones is the right to food sovereignty, where access to resources, water, land and seeds are basic elements.
For example, a law has recently been enacted on the promotion, protection and defense of free seeds of Andean tubers as patrimony of the peoples in a municipality of Cochabamba. This law was introduced by two women, a council woman with the strong support of another young woman (27 years old) who is the president of the municipal council. This shows that caring for agrobiodiversity requires committed and critical work against privatisation policies.
Why was it important for you/your organisation to attend the CBD COP 16 negotiations in Cali? And what were you hoping to get out of these negotiations?
I was there with CENDA for two main reasons:
- First of all, to find allies, whether organisations, institutions or individuals working in the area of seed conservation and agrobiodiversity, especially those who are assuming the defense of free seeds.
- But also, to observe the process and to monitor the engagement and commitments of Bolivia’s government.

COP16 featured two main zones: the Blue Zone, which is an area specifically designated for negotiations and dialogues between member countries and accredited observers, and the Green Zone, which is designed to encourage the active participation of civil society, NGOs, private sector and other interested stakeholders. This zone was open to the public to facilitate conversations and inspire concrete actions for biodiversity conservation and strengthen citizen participation in key environmental discussions.
Although the negotiations in the Blue Zone saw a strong debate on the need for economic resources to conserve biodiversity, I felt that the link between discussions taking place in the Green Zone and those in the Blue Zone was missing. For example, when talking to indigenous peoples and those who were in the Green Zone participating in exhibitions on various topics related to biodiversity, I noticed that many of them didn’t seem to know what proposals their country/government representatives were bringing to the negotiations in the Blue Zone. For Bolivia, for example, we had very little information about the country’s position.

Bolivia’s position before the COP was, among others, focused on:
- Deciding on actions centered on Mother Earth with a cosmobiocentric approach within the framework of living well in balance and harmony with Mother Earth;
- Advancing the recognition of the rights of Mother Earth as a living being and strengthening policy instruments for its protection, management and restoration, without commodification of its environmental functions and strengthening the rights of the indigenous and native peoples.
In this sense, it was important to have the participation of many countries that share the same line of non-commercialisation of biodiversity and, along with it, the knowledge of indigenous peoples and communities, who are the main guardians of biodiversity in their territories, despite the great threats they face.
How can we ensure that women’s voices, rights and perspectives are reflected in the global biodiversity agenda and that gender justice is advanced within the global biodiversity space?
I think there is still a very long way to go, but it all comes down to inequalities, both of opportunities and rights; women almost always have a lot of disadvantages compared to men, this is probably part of the colonisation that has been imposed on us. Women assume greater responsibility for the care of the home and their role in production in a world where money and the accumulation of goods has increased compared to 2 or 3 generations ago. Education and unequal opportunities for men and women to take on leadership roles are another factor of disadvantage for women, and likewise patriarchy is another barrier that remains to be overcome.
However, it is necessary to recognise that it is fundamental that indigenous communities and particularly women should be included in the updating of the Biodiversity Action Plans to ensure that their voices and knowledge are reflected in conservation policies at local, regional, national and global levels.
It is necessary to promote greater participation of women, who are mostly in the territories, and this requires good information, training and preparation on basic aspects of laws, rights, obligations, etc. that involve everything related to biodiversity.
In order to promote gender justice in the global biodiversity space, it seems to me that it is very important that the delegations that will represent the voices of the peoples must also be duly accredited in the decision-making spaces and probably the ways in which the peoples and diplomatic delegations are represented will have to be discussed.

About Lidia Paz Hidalgo:
Lidia is an agricultural technician who works with the Bolivian NGO CENDA, the Centre for Communication and Andean Development, where she is responsible for food security and sovereignty. She is an expert on seed biodiversity and agrobiodiversity who works a lot with peasant women. She recently attended CBD COP 16 as an observer of the process.
CENDA is a partner organisation of CIDSE members Broederlijk Delen (Belgium) and CAFOD (England and Wales).
Additional Reading:
- Highland agriculture in the hands of women by Lidia Paz Hidalgo – in Feminism and Agroecology: transforming economy and society, Farming Matters Magazine published by The AgriCultures Network, CIDSE and Cultivate! (October 2020) (EN)
- Seguridad y soberanía alimentaria – Agricultura altoandina en manos de las mujeres by Lidia Paz Hidalgo (October 2022) (ES)
- Aardappelen registreren als daad van verzet – CENDA/Broederlijk Delen (NL)
- Seed systems and gender equality with a case study from Kenya – CAFOD (October 2024) (EN)
Cover photo: Lidia Paz Hidalgo (on the right) and Liliana Pechenemuelas (Pueblo Misac, at the CBD COP 16 in Cali, Colombia). Photo credit: CENDA