World’s First Insect Rights for Amazon Stingless Bees Spark a Global Conservation Reckoning
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. Across a broad swathe of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest’s long-overlooked native bees – which, unlike their cousins the European honeybees, have no sting – now have the right to exist and to flourish. Cultivated by Indigenous peoples since pre-Columbian times, stingless bees are thought to be key rainforest pollinators, sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem health. 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. Constanza Prieto, Latin American director at the Earth Law Center, who was part of the campaign, said: “This 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.” The world-first ordinances, passed in two Peruvian regions in the past few months, follow a campaign of research and advocacy spearheaded by Rosa Vásquez 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. 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. “I was seeing hundreds of medicinal molecules, like molecules that are known to have some sort of biological medicinal property,” Espinoza recalled. “And the variety was also really wild – these molecules have been known to have antiinflammatory effects or antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant, even anti-cancer.” Espinoza, who has written a book, The Spirit of the Rainforest, 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.
In This Article:
- Peru grants legal rights to stingless bees in two municipalities, a world first
- Stingless bees: The Ancient Rainforest Pollinators Driving Biodiversity
- A Looming Crisis Decline, Pesticides, and Competition from Africanised Bees
- From Research to Law Mapping IUCN and Peru's Native-Bees Protection Law
- A Global Ripple Effect Petitions International Interest and Indigenous Knowledge
- What Happens Next What Comes After the Landmark Bee Rights Law Habitat Protection Pesticide Controls and Expansion
Peru grants legal rights to stingless bees in two municipalities, a world first
Across the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest’s native stingless bees have been granted the right to exist and to flourish. The ordinances establish that the bees must be allowed to thrive in healthy habitats free from pollution and under ecologically stable climatic conditions, and they also grant the bees legal representation in cases of threat or harm. The first municipality to pass such protections was Satipo in October, followed by a matching ordinance in Nauta, Loreto, on December 22. Prieto described the move as a landmark: “This 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.” Ramos, president of EcoAshaninka, also emphasized the cultural dimension: “The stingless bee provides us with food and medicine, and it must be made known so that more people will protect it. For this reason, this law that protects bees and their rights represents a major step forward for us, because it gives value to the lived experience of our Indigenous peoples and the rainforest.” Espinoza’s team notes that the laws create a precedent for habitat restoration, pesticide regulation, climate adaptation, scientific research, and precaution in decisions affecting bee survival.
Stingless bees: The Ancient Rainforest Pollinators Driving Biodiversity
Found in tropical regions across the world, stingless bees are the oldest bee species on the planet. About half of the world’s 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. They also hold deep cultural and spiritual meaning for the forest’s Indigenous Asháninka and Kukama-Kukamiria peoples. “Within the stingless bee lives Indigenous traditional knowledge, passed down since the time of our grandparents,” said Apu Cesar Ramos, president of EcoAshaninka of the Ashaninka Communal Reserve. “The stingless bee has existed since time immemorial and reflects our coexistence with the rainforest.”
A Looming Crisis Decline, Pesticides, and Competition from Africanised Bees
From the outset, Espinoza began hearing reports that the bees were becoming more difficult to find. “We were talking actively with the different community members and the first things they were saying, which they still do to this day, is: ‘I 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.’” Her chemical analysis had also turned up some concerning findings. Traces of pesticides were appearing in the stingless bees’ honey – despite their being kept in areas far from industrial agriculture. “It almost created a vicious cycle. I cannot give you the funding because you’re not on the list, but you cannot even get on the list because you don’t have the data. You don’t have the funding to get it.” In 2023, they formally began a project to map the extent and ecology of the bees, “because by that time we had already spoken with the IUCN team and some government people in Peru and understood that that data was critical.” An expedition later revealed links between deforestation and the decline of stingless bees, research that helped contribute to the passing of a law in 2024 recognising stingless bees as the native bees of Peru. Dr César Delgado, a researcher at the Institute of Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon, described stingless bees as “primary pollinators” in the Amazon, contributing not just to plant reproduction, but also to biodiversity, forest conservation and global food security. They also noted that an experiment in 1950s Brazil to create a strain that would produce more honey in tropical conditions led to the Africanised honeybee – a variety that was also more aggressive, earning them the fearsome moniker “African killer bees”. Espinoza and her colleagues found that these Africanised bees have begun outcompeting the comparatively gentle stingless bees in their own habitats. Elizabeth, an Asháninka elder living in a remote part of the Avireri Vraem Biosphere reserve, described the impact: “The strongest example of [bee] species competition that I have ever seen.” “I felt so scared, to be honest,” she added, “because I have heard of that before, but not to that extent. She had horror in her eyes and she kept looking at me straight and asking: ‘how do I get rid of them? I hate them. I want them gone’.”
From Research to Law Mapping IUCN and Peru's Native-Bees Protection Law
The mapping revealed links between deforestation and the decline of stingless bees – research that helped contribute to the passing of a law in 2024 recognising stingless bees as the native bees of Peru. The law was a critical step, as Peruvian law requires the protection of native species. Dr César Delgado, a researcher at the Institute of Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon, described stingless bees as “primary pollinators” in the Amazon, contributing not just to plant reproduction, but also to biodiversity, forest conservation and global food security. The ordinances are precedents with no equivalent worldwide. Prieto said: “The mandate requires policies for the bees’ survival, including habitat reforestation and restoration, strict regulation of pesticides and herbicides, mitigation of and adaptation to the impacts of climate change, the advancement of scientific research, and the adoption of the precautionary principle as a guiding framework for all decisions that may affect their survival.” Ramos added: “The stingless bee provides us with food and medicine, and it must be made known so that more people will protect it. For this reason, this law that protects bees and their rights represents a major step forward for us, because it gives value to the lived experience of our Indigenous peoples and the rainforest.”
A Global Ripple Effect Petitions International Interest and Indigenous Knowledge
A global petition by Avaaz calling on Peru to make the law nationwide has reached more than 386,000 signatures, and there has also been strong interest from groups in Bolivia, the Netherlands and the US who want to follow the municipalities’ examples as a basis to advocate for the rights of their own wild bees. Ramos summarized the sentiment: “The stingless bee provides us with food and medicine, and it must be made known so that more people will protect it. For this reason, this law that protects bees and their rights represents a major step forward for us, because it gives value to the lived experience of our Indigenous peoples and the rainforest.” Prieto added: “This 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.”
What Happens Next What Comes After the Landmark Bee Rights Law Habitat Protection Pesticide Controls and Expansion
The ordinances create a mandate that policies for the bees’ survival include habitat reforestation and restoration, strict regulation of pesticides and herbicides, mitigation of and adaptation to the impacts of climate change, the advancement of scientific research, and the precautionary principle as a guiding framework for decisions affecting their survival. The law foregrounds the lived knowledge of Indigenous communities and signals a potential expansion of rights to other wild bee populations in Peru and beyond.
