In a world first, stingless bees from the Amazon rainforest have been awarded legal personhood in a historic ruling. The municipality of Satipo, located in Peru, passed an ordinance in October that recognizes stingless bees as vital pollinators, essential for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem health. This first-of-its kind legal recognition emphasizes the importance of native bees and their essential role. They are the main reason why more than 80% of the plants in the area bloom.
Stingless bees are of great ecological and cultural importance. Around 50% of the world’s 500 known species of stingless bee call the Amazon home. For centuries, Indigenous peoples of the Amazon including the Asháninka and Kumama-Kukamiria have grown and managed these bees. They weave their very being into deep cultural and spiritual traditions. In 2020, Rosa Vásquez Espinoza—an early-career chemical biologist—started her research on stingless bees. She was inspired to explore their honey, which became hugely popular among Indigenous communities through the pandemic.
The new ordinance bestows the right of existence and flourishing on stingless bees. It further requires them to keep their populations and habitats healthy and pollution-free. This legal framework further provides for the reddition of stingless bees in situations where they are being threatened or endangered.
Now these important pollinators are threatened by climate change, deforestation, pesticides, and competition with European honeybees. An experiment in the 1950s led to the creation of the Africanised honeybee, which has since begun displacing stingless bees in their natural habitats.
Espinoza’s studies showcase the incredible medicinal properties of this unique, stingless bee honey. “I was seeing hundreds of medicinal molecules, like molecules that are known to have some sort of biological medicinal property,” she noted. Her research has shown that these molecules have very valuable anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant and even anti-cancer influences.
Stingless bee populations are being subjected to distressing dangers. Understanding them as rights-bearing subjects is the essential turning point in our relationship to nature. Constanza Prieto, an advocate for environmental rights, stated, “This ordinance marks a turning point in our relationship with nature: it makes stingless bees visible, recognizes them as rights-bearing subjects, and affirms their essential role in preserving ecosystems.”
Apu Cesar Ramos, an Indigenous leader of the Asháninka community, stressed the cultural importance of stingless bees. “Within the stingless bee lives Indigenous traditional knowledge, passed down since the time of our grandparents,” he remarked. He elaborated, saying these bees produce our food and medicine, while emphasizing why we must protect them. “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.”
The legal recognition of stingless bees operates within a larger, growing movement to protect Peru’s native species. In 2024, lawmakers passed a law specifically recognizing stingless bees as the native bees of Peru, solidifying their status and importance within the ecosystem.
As Espinoza looks back on her journey in studying these extraordinary pollinators, she remembers times she was afraid for their future. “I was pretty terrified, to tell you the truth,” she said. Her experiences with these First Nations communities have profoundly shaped her understanding of Indigenous communities’ struggles. She recounts a conversation with an Indigenous woman who expressed her frustration with Africanised bees: “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.’”