Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, in a breakthrough supporters hope will be a catalyst for similar moves to protect bees elsewhere.<\/p>\n
It means that across a broad swathe of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest\u2019s long-overlooked native bees \u2013 which, unlike their cousins the European honeybees, have no sting \u2013 now have the right to exist and to flourish.<\/p>\n
Cultivated by Indigenous peoples since pre-Columbian times, stingless bees are thought to be key rainforest pollinators, sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem health.<\/p>\n
But they are faced with a deadly confluence of climate change, deforestation and pesticides, as well as competition from European bees, and scientists and campaigners have been racing against time to get stingless bees on international conservation red lists.<\/p>\n
Constanza Prieto, Latin American director at the Earth Law Center, who was part of the campaign, said: \u201cThis ordinance marks a turning point in our relationship with nature: it makes stingless bees visible, recognises them as rights-bearing subjects, and affirms their essential role in preserving ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n
The world-first ordinances, passed in two Peruvian regions in the past few months, follow a campaign of research and advocacy spearheaded by Rosa V\u00e1squez Espinoza, founder of Amazon Research Internacional, who has spent the past few years travelling into the Amazon to work with Indigenous people to document the bees.<\/p>\n
Espinoza, a chemical biologist, first started researching the bees in 2020, after a colleague asked her to conduct an analysis of their honey, which was being used during the pandemic in Indigenous communities where treatments for Covid were in short supply. She was stunned by the findings<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI was seeing hundreds of medicinal molecules, like molecules that are known to have some sort of biological medicinal property,\u201d Espinoza recalled. \u201cAnd the variety was also really wild \u2013 these molecules have been known to have antiinflammatory effects or antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant, even anti-cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n Espinoza, who has written a book, The Spirit of the Rainforest<\/a>, about her work in the Amazon, began leading expeditions to learn more about stingless bees, working with Indigenous people to document the traditional methods of finding and cultivating the insects, and harvesting their honey.<\/p>\n Found in tropical regions across the world, stingless bees, a class that encompasses a number of varieties, are the oldest bee species on the planet. About half of the world\u2019s 500 known species live in the Amazon, where they are responsible for pollinating more than 80% of the flora, including such crops as cacao, coffee and avocados.<\/p>\n They also hold deep cultural and spiritual meaning for the forest\u2019s Indigenous Ash\u00e1ninka and Kukama-Kukamiria<\/a> peoples. \u201cWithin the stingless bee lives Indigenous traditional knowledge, passed down since the time of our grandparents,\u201d said Apu Cesar Ramos, president of EcoAshaninka of the Ashaninka Communal Reserve. \u201cThe stingless bee has existed since time immemorial and reflects our coexistence with the rainforest.\u201d<\/p>\n From the outset, Espinoza began hearing reports that the bees were becoming more difficult to find. \u201cWe were talking actively with the different community members and the first things they were saying, which they still do to this day, is: \u2018I cannot see my bees any more. It used to take me 30 minutes walking into the jungle to find them. And now it takes me hours.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Her chemical analysis had also turned up some concerning findings. Traces of pesticides were appearing in the stingless bees\u2019 honey \u2013 despite their being kept in areas far from industrial agriculture.<\/p>\n A lack of awareness about stingless bees made obtaining funding for research difficult, Espinoza said. So at the same time as beginning fieldwork, she and her colleagues began advocating for recognition of the insects, both in Peru and at the International Union for the Conservation<\/a> of Nature (IUCN).<\/p>\n The stingless bees hold deep cultural and spiritual meaning for the forest\u2019s Indigenous Ash\u00e1ninka and Kumama-Kukamiria peoples. Photograph: Luis Garcia\/Handout<\/p>\n For years, the only kinds of bees to have official recognition in Peru have been European honeybees, brought to the continent by colonisers in the 1500s.<\/p>\n \u201cIt almost created a vicious cycle. I cannot give you the funding because you\u2019re not on the list, but you cannot even get on the list because you don\u2019t have the data. You don\u2019t have the funding to get it.\u201d In 2023, they formally began a project to map the extent and ecology of the bees, \u201cbecause by that time we had already spoken with the IUCN team and some government people in Peru and understood that that data was critical.\u201d<\/p>\n The mapping revealed links between deforestation and the decline of stingless bees \u2013 research that helped contribute to the passing of a law in 2024 recognising stingless bees as the native bees of Peru<\/a>. The law was a critical step, as Peruvian law requires the protection of native species.<\/p>\n Dr C\u00e9sar Delgado, a researcher at the Institute of Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon, described stingless bees as \u201cprimary pollinators\u201d in the Amazon, contributing not just to plant reproduction, but also to biodiversity, forest conservation and global food security.<\/p>\n But their research revealed something else too.<\/p>\n An experiment in 1950s Brazil to create a strain that would produce more honey in tropical conditions led to the creation of the Africanised honeybee \u2013 a variety that was also more aggressive, earning them the fearsome moniker \u201cAfrican killer bees\u201d. Now, Espinoza and her colleagues found, these Africanised bees have begun outcompeting the comparatively gentle stingless bees in their own habitats.<\/p>\n On an expedition in the Amazonian highlands of Junin, southern Peru, they met Elizabeth, an Ash\u00e1ninka elder, who told them of what Espinoza said was \u201cthe strongest example of [bee] species competition that I have ever seen\u201d.<\/p>\n