LocationsStory of Women-Led Herbal Enterprises Close to Tiger’s Home
How Women Make Green Business Work
October 14, 2026
Why do we need to include women in protecting nature? The story of women-led herbal enterprises in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex will tell you why. Along the forest edge of Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, women in surrounding communities are turning medicinal herbs into income. The Wildlife Friendly Community (WFC) network, previously supported through the UNDP-GEF 5 Tiger Project, has grown from 21 to 88 households over roughly six years, with many members shifting from forest-dependent activities towards herbal cultivation. Today, women are involved in growing and processing medicinal plants, developing herbal products, managing community enterprises and getting products to market. Participating households earn approximately THB 500–10,000 per month in supplementary income. Certified medicinal herbs can generate more income from much less land than conventional monocropping. Some herbs and plants with pungent aromas, such as turmeric, lemongrass and citrus, are less attractive to elephants, helping reduce crop-raiding and human–wildlife conflict.
Farms and communities along the edge of Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, where livelihoods and forest conservation exist side by side.
UNDP Thailand
This raises two practical questions: what are women actually doing that helps conservation work better, and where do their roles create business value worth investing in? Supported in Thailand by Germany’s International Climate Initiative (IKI) and Cartier Philanthropy for People and Nature, Tiger Landscapes Investment Facility (TLIF) is now supporting the WFC network to scale up these community enterprises, focusing on the business constraints that stand between high-value production and larger markets.
Thailand’s herbal and traditional products market was worth around US$1.27 billion in 2024. The National Action Plan on Thai Herbs (2023–2027) is pushing the sector beyond primary production towards better standards, stronger herbal SMEs and higher-value markets. Yet important gaps remain, particularly in certification and processing—a high-value crop does not automatically become a high-value business. At the same time, Thailand’s National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBSAP) 2023-2027 gives greater attention to women’s roles in biodiversity conservation, including in livelihoods such as herbal production. This raises a practical question: what are women actually doing that helps conservation work better?
Why livelihoods matter for conservation
Across forest buffer zones in WEFCOM, farming and conservation exist side by side. Many households rely on conventional monocropping, including maize and sugarcane, which can require relatively large areas of land, rely heavily on chemical inputs and involve crop-residue burning. Other livelihoods, including livestock raising, also take place close to forest edges. This interface with the forest can bring people and wildlife into closer contact, contributing to human–wildlife conflict, from elephants raiding crops to tigers preying on livestock.
The conservation challenge, therefore, is not simply to ask communities to use fewer forest resources. Households need other ways to earn an income. This was the starting point for the herbal network, which uses income generation to reduce forest dependency and support coexistence with wildlife.
Markets pay for products, not biodiversity. The conservation value therefore depends on turning a lower-impact livelihood into something people can actually sell and earn from.
A WFC member discusses herbal cultivation with UNDP
Karnklon Raktham, UNDP Thailand
How Women Make Green Business Work
First, herbal production can make a different economic choice possible at household level.
In this landscape, certified high-value herbal production can generate around ten times the income of crops such as maize or sugarcane from the same area of land. This means some farmers can generate better income from one hectare of certified herbs than from ten hectares of conventional monocropping. In forest buffer zones, this creates an economic alternative to conventional monocropping and other livelihoods that place greater pressure on forests.
Part of the opportunity lies in the nature of the work itself. Cultivation and activities such as sorting, drying, processing and product preparation can be done close to home and organized around childcare and household responsibilities. For women in these communities, this makes herbal production a practical way to earn income. It is also a concrete example of what the Thailand’s NBSAP calls for: recognizing women’s different roles and responsibilities when creating opportunities for them to take part in conservation.
Butterfly pea harvesting near Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary
Karnklon Raktham, UNDP Thailand
Second, quality and volume open the door to larger markets.
Women play a key role in harvesting, handling and processing herbs to meet quality standards. International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)–certified dried herbs can sell for up to four times the price of conventional dried herbs.
The WFC already has a route into this market. It works with Jompa Community Co., Ltd. to supply herbal products to the Chao Phraya Abhaibhubejhr Foundation and has previously supplied dried herbs to several hospitals and online markets. With 234 rai under herbal production, including growers with IFOAM-certified plots, the group has room to expand its supply to established buyers.
This relationship between women’s roles, product quality and economic value is also seen in other high-value crops. In Southeast Asia’s coffee sector, women often lead picking, sorting and drying—activities that directly affect bean quality. In Flores, Indonesia, regular training for women in partner farmer groups improved coffee quality and contributed to a 60 percent increase in farm-gate prices.
For high-value crops, strengthening skills at the points where quality is determined can translate directly into economic value.
Volume matters too. By aggregating harvests from multiple households, the group can supply the quantities larger buyers need, strengthen its bargaining power and connect with intermediaries for further processing and extraction.
The herbal value chain and the support needed to reach higher-value markets
These are precisely the constraints facing herbal enterprises in WEFCOM: meeting rising market standards, fulfilling larger orders, investing in processing capacity and accessing the finance needed to grow.
The WFC is already trying to move further along this path. Its plans include developing herbal formulations, obtaining Thai FDA approval, improving processing capacity and reaching stronger markets.
Women sort and prepare medicinal herbs for market in communities around Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary.
WFC
Third, women-led collective management turns individual livelihoods into a stronger community enterprise.
The herbal network has already moved beyond cultivation. Its activities span processing, product development and value addition, community enterprise management and market linkages. It has supplied dried herbal materials to hospitals and expanded into online markets.
Women bring practical experience from cultivation and post-harvest work into decisions about what to grow and how to organize production, working with buyers to understand market demand and coordinating with growers to plan accordingly. By planning and managing production collectively, individual households can work as part of a larger enterprise—building the quality and volume needed to reach markets. Women make up 41% of Thailand’s agricultural workforce but account for only 27% of agricultural landowners. Because formal land ownership is often needed to use land as collateral, this gap can limit women’s direct access to finance.
Women-led enterprises can also strengthen women’s bargaining position and access to finance, training and business services. In Vietnam’s agriculture sector, women play a major role in production but have less access to credit, technology, markets and training, and remain less involved in major production decisions. Women lead at least half of domestic coffee trading companies in Vietnam and are widely recognized as effective negotiators with farmers and buyers.
This matters in forest buffer zones. A household able to earn more from high-value production on less land has different economic options from one dependent on extensive monocropping or forest resources. A well-managed community enterprise strengthens that option by making the livelihood work at a scale beyond a single household.
What is still needed to make the business viable
The WFC network still faces barriers to growing the business. Community herbal enterprises produce a range of products but continue to face gaps in branding, financial literacy and access to wider markets. Existing support can also stop too early: many livelihood programmes provide training or production inputs without ensuring that what communities produce can actually be sold.
Certification and processing are therefore not technical details. They are part of the bridge between high-value production and higher-value markets.
So are finance and market access. Processing equipment and facilities require investment. Certification costs money. Enterprises need working capital to fill orders. Buyers need reliable quality and supply.
For financial institutions, these are recognizable business needs. The opportunity is not to finance biodiversity in the abstract, but to finance businesses whose growth can support both local incomes and a healthier relationship with the surrounding landscape.
Herbs prepared for delivery to buyers.
WFC
From women’s participation to conservation effectiveness
What matters is not simply how many women participate, but where they create value and how that value can be strengthened. In Huay Kha Khaeng, women’s roles extend across the business—from the work that determines product quality to organizing production, managing enterprises and reaching markets.
People will only stick with a livelihood that puts less pressure on forests if they can make a decent living from it. Where women are central to making that livelihood work, their economic contribution becomes part of the conservation story too.
Thailand’s NBSAP gives greater prominence to women’s roles in biodiversity conservation. Those roles are economic too: women can contribute to conservation through the businesses and livelihoods they help make work.
For investors and development partners, this means looking beyond whether a business is simply “women-led”. The question is whether finance and business support reach the parts of the business where women contribute—from quality and production to management and markets.
This does not mean women are inherently better conservationists. Their contribution matters because of the economic roles they actually play. When women are central to making nature-positive businesses work, investing in those roles strengthens both the business and its contribution to biodiversity.
Members of the Wildlife Friendly Community (WFC) network
Karnklon Raktham, UNDP Thailand