Amazon Stingless Bees Become the First Insects Granted Legal Rights

Stingless bees native to the Amazon rainforest have become the first insects in the world to be granted legal rights, marking a landmark moment for nature protection that campaigners hope will inspire similar action globally.

Legal Recognition for Long-Overlooked Native Pollinators

Across large areas of the Peruvian Amazon, native stingless bees now have the recognised right to exist and to flourish. Unlike European honeybees, these rainforest bees do not sting and have been largely overlooked in conservation policy despite their vital ecological role.

Stingless bees have been cultivated by Indigenous communities since pre-Columbian times and are considered essential rainforest pollinators. They support biodiversity, forest regeneration and ecosystem health, while also holding deep cultural and spiritual importance for Indigenous peoples including the Asháninka and Kukama-Kukamiria.

Bees Under Growing Threat from Human Activity

Stingless bees face mounting pressures from climate change, deforestation, pesticide pollution and competition from introduced European and Africanised honeybees. Scientists and conservation groups have warned that without urgent action, many species could disappear before they are even fully documented.

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 groundbreaking ordinances were passed in two Peruvian regions following years of research and advocacy led by Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, founder of Amazon Research Internacional. She has worked closely with Indigenous communities to document stingless bee species, traditional knowledge and population declines.

Espinoza began studying the bees in 2020 after analysing their honey, which was being used in Indigenous communities during the Covid pandemic. Her findings. revealed unexpected medicinal properties, alongside worrying traces of pesticide contamination.

“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.”

Mapping Decline Reveals Links to Deforestation

As field research expanded, Espinoza and her colleagues began hearing consistent reports that stingless bees were becoming harder to find.

Espinoza said: “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.’”

Mapping studies later revealed a strong link between deforestation and declining bee populations, helping to drive policy change.

This research contributed to a 2024 law officially recognising stingless bees as the native bees of Peru. This was a crucial step, as Peruvian law requires protections for native species once they are formally recognised.

“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.”

Essential Pollinators for Forests and Food

Scientists estimate that stingless bees pollinate more than 80% of Amazon rainforest plant species, including crops such as cacao, coffee and avocados.

“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.”

Dr César Delgado of the Institute of Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon has described them as primary pollinators critical to biodiversity, forest conservation and global food security.

Research also highlighted the impact of Africanised honeybees, which originated from a failed 1950s experiment in Brazil to increase honey production. These more aggressive bees have spread widely and are now outcompeting stingless bees in parts of the Amazon.

In some areas, Indigenous beekeepers report being forced to abandon stingless bee cultivation after Africanised bees displaced them and posed safety risks.

“I felt so scared, to be honest,” said Espinoza. “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’.”

Municipalities Grant Rights to Nature

In October, the municipality of Satipo became the first in the world to grant legal rights to stingless bees. The ordinance guarantees their right to exist across the Avireri Vraem reserve, maintain healthy populations, live in pollution-free habitats, experience stable climatic conditions and be legally represented if threatened or harmed.

A second municipality, Nauta in the Loreto region, approved a matching ordinance in December, extending protections across more of the Amazon.

These ordinances have no equivalent anywhere else in the world and are already inspiring international interest. A global petition calling for nationwide protection in Peru has attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures, while organisations in Bolivia, Europe and the United States are exploring similar legal approaches to defend wild bees.

Ramos said: “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.”

Conservation groups say recognising the rights of stingless bees represents a powerful shift towards valuing nature not only for its economic benefit, but for its intrinsic role in sustaining life on Earth.

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At Natural World Fund, we are passionate about restoring habitats in the UK to halt the decline in our wildlife.