Women and the Work of Stewardship: Restoring Balance

“True stewardship requires more than science and policy — it demands a balance of empathy and courage. Women are uniquely qualified to lead with a wisdom that bridges the gap between science and soul.”

For too long, environmental leadership has been shaped without the full participation of women. Policy, industry, and scientific and educational institutions have carried mostly male voices, leaving a crucial balance absent from the table.

It’s not the only reason we are where we are today — but it is a factor we can no longer ignore. And the fix is straightforward: women must show up, and men must make space to include us in the process.

Current Conditions

Many of our forests and lands are in a dangerous fuel-rich state, subject to disease, overcrowding, and mega-fire risk. In Wildland-Urban Interface zones, wildfire events increasingly lead to billions of dollars in economic losses, mounting damage to natural resources, and devastation to communities (U.S. Fire Administration).

Communities in the WUI are often marginalized in policy conversations. They suffer when serial litigation and misuse of the Endangered Species Act are used not to heal the land but as legal leverage to shut down resource use.

The impacts are not abstract: local infrastructure falters, school systems lose funding, and rural economies slide into dependency on federal assistance. In areas with older populations and fewer resources, the burden is even greater (USDA Economic Research Service). When work disappears, so does dignity — and rates of drug and alcohol dependency increase, compounding cycles of poverty and despair.

It is women who so often carry the weight of these crises — holding fractured families together, raising children alone, caring for aging parents, and trying to keep communities intact. Their perspective is not optional; it is essential.

Rooted in Wisdom

Across cultures and centuries, wisdom has been imagined in feminine form — not as conquest but as care, not as domination but as presence. Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century abbess and visionary, called this presence Viriditas — the greening power of life flowing through every leaf, river, and breath of wind. The health of the soul cannot be separated from the health of creation.

Sophia — Lady Wisdom — declares: “I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist” (Sirach 24:3). She is the Creator’s breath, moving across land and sea, filling the skies, taking root among the people of God. The book of Wisdom tells us that Sophia “reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and she orders all things well” (Wisdom 8:1). She is the feminine reflection of God’s care for the world.

Sophia is not an abstraction. She is present in creation itself — a balance to the masculine: “Then I was beside him, like a master worker, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (Proverbs 8:30–31).

Throughout human history and across traditions, women have been named as healers, keepers of the earth, and guardians of life — entrusted with the work of tending both people and the land.

For women to take their place in environmental stewardship is not a novelty. It is a continuation of an ancient call — of ancient traditions rooted in the Creator and creation.

The Guardians of Generations

Women have long carried the responsibility of nurturing life. As mothers, grandmothers, aunties, and mentors, they hold the future in their arms, tending not only to children but also to the conditions that allow life to flourish. In many households, women serve as both mother and father — in the U.S., more than 70% of single-parent households are headed by women. Their choices about food, water, education, and health ripple far beyond their immediate families.

Indigenous traditions teach us to make decisions with seven generations in mind. Women already live this reality — each choice they make as caretakers carries forward into lives of children they may never meet.

This is not to relieve men of responsibility. Men are equally called to tend for seven generations out. But by excluding women from leadership and decision-making, men compromise the very future they are charged to protect. The work of stewardship cannot be done by half of humanity alone.

The Current Imbalance

The environmental sector reflects a troubling gap. Women are increasingly present in education and research but remain underrepresented in leadership roles that shape climate policy, land use, and industry priorities. Globally, only about 15% of environmental ministers are women. In climate science, fewer than 13% of leading researchers are women. And corporate boards directing energy, forestry, and utilities remain overwhelmingly male.

The absence of women in these roles matters. Without their voices, decisions tilt toward short-term exploitation rather than long-term care. Without women’s perspective, the vision of stewardship remains partial, unbalanced, and unsustainable.

True Stewardship

True stewardship is not easy work. When we speak of empathy or making room for others, it sounds so nice — but this is where we will be most challenged. True stewardship demands the courage to face complexity, to hold opposing views in tension, and to act and speak in the face of opposition. As my father often reminded me, “Do the right thing, even when it is not popular — and it usually isn’t.”

True stewardship is not about doing nothing. “Nothing” is not the absence of action. When you walk away, there are consequences. Every mother has taught her two-year-old this lesson. A forest left untended does not always “heal” itself. Much like adolescents without intervention, the consequences can be dire.

A clear-cut may appear destructive to some, but when executed correctly it is life-giving. In those spaces, countless plants and animals return, flourishing in the renewed light. Fire, too, can be incredibly destructive — adding carbon load, destroying soil, endangering homes and lives. But when applied or managed correctly, fire opens spaces, eliminates ladder fuels and overgrowth, regenerates the soil biome, and protects waterways. Indigenous peoples have long modeled this practice of fire as renewal.

To be a true steward is to embrace these complexities. It is to seek balance, to understand the cycles of renewal, and to keep forests healthy and resilient. That means recognizing that management must be rooted in the current conditions on the land, the history of the land, and the needs of both humans and ecosystems over time.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” treatment for forests or lands. Furthermore, humans are not the enemy of the land. We are part of the family of the land — an Indigenous principle worth remembering. Narratives that exclude humans from connection to the land must be challenged. There is no crime in utilizing land — if you care for it.

Too often, those who reject any hands-on approach drive narratives rooted in fear and exclusivity. They sell the illusion of an unchanging forest, where outcomes can be perfectly predicted and human involvement only leads to destruction. These arguments rely on sweeping generalizations and false equivalencies. More dangerously, they predict only disastrous outcomes, stoking fear instead of seeking balance.

But no system — whether families or forests — thrives under blame and gaslighting.

Embodied Wisdom

True stewardship is not about fear. It is about responsibility, humility, and the wisdom to work with nature’s cycles rather than against them.

Women uniquely embody this wisdom — at a cellular level. We live in rhythms and cycles that cannot always be predicted or regulated: fertility, pregnancy, birth, menopause, aging. We can carry life without knowing how it will unfold. Our physical experience as women teaches us that pain and change are not signs of failure but of transformation — that letting go is as much a part of the cycle as holding on.

Our collective experience, this embodied knowledge, makes women’s voices vital to the work of restoring balance. It is the same wisdom required for tending the earth: active listening, the practice of patience, honoring the cycles of death and renewal, tending for resilience, respecting fragility, expecting change, and welcoming her never-ending capacity to surprise us.