The MERGE programme (Managing Ecosystems and Resources with Gender Emphasis) is a collaborative network of Latin American organisations involved in applying a gender, participatory focus to work with communities in the management of natural resources. It is mainly focused on developing training and technical assistance programmes. This document provides a training guide for the personnel of protected areas and their community partners and for whoever works with community conservation in the field, within institutions and at policy level. Participatory methods are suggested for each step, including large and small group discussions, mapping, group analysis and evaluation, brainstorming. This training can develop skills such as the ability to analyse women's and men's roles and their relationship to the management of natural resources, to articulate the importance of women's participation in conservation efforts and remove barriers to such participation.