For the first time in history, the law recognizes an insect as a copyright holder. In the central Amazon of Peru, Satipo officials approved a regulation recognizing native stingless bees as subjects of law with inalienable rights.
The ruling focuses on pollinators, which help keep tropical forests alive. The stingless bees pollinate approximately 80 percent of the Amazon's native plant species, from forest trees to crops that support wildlife, indigenous food systems and global markets. By recognizing them as legal subjects rather than biological resources, the law allows authorities to act when colonies or habitats are threatened, rethinking how conservation law defines protection.
“This ruling marks a turning point in how we understand and legislate our relationship with [n]nature,” said Constanza Prieto Figelist, director of the legal program at the Earth Law Center for Latin America, in her report. press release.
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The bees that keep the Amazon alive
Globally wild bees They play a role in pollinating more than 90 percent of the crops that feed the world, according to the Earth Law Center.
In the Amazon, stingless bees are among the most important of these species. Nearly half of the world's roughly 500 species of stingless bees live in tropical forests, many of them in the Amazon, where their decline has immediate ecological consequences.
As stingless bee populations decline, fewer flowers turn into fruits and seeds. Forest regeneration is slowing, wildlife is losing food sources, and crop yields are falling, especially for fruit-bearing plants that rely on animals. pollinators.
For Ashaninka communities in the central Amazon, stingless bees are part of everyday life. Families have practiced meliponyculture—the management of stingless bees—for centuries while harvesting crops. honey and wax for food, medicine, tools and ritual use. Knowledge about nesting trees, seasonal cycles and bee behavior is passed down from generation to generation and is closely linked to observations of forest health.
These same traits make stingless bees especially vulnerable to habitat loss. Many species nest on specific tree species and occur in small, heterogeneous populations. When forests are cut down or degraded, entire colonies can disappear at once.
Deforestation, pesticide use, land conversion, invasive species and extreme climate events, including floods and prolonged droughts, accelerate these losses. As colonies decline, traditional beekeeping practices become increasingly difficult to maintain, threatening both biodiversity and the transfer of indigenous ecological knowledge.
What the Decree does
Conservation laws typically aim to protect land or regulate resource use. But these tools often fail to protect pollinators from cumulative harm, especially when the damage is caused by many small actions rather than a single threat.
The Satipo ruling takes a different approach. Rather than viewing stingless bees as resources to be managed, he recognizes them and their ecosystems as subjects of rights. By law, stingless bees have the right to:
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right to exist and thrive
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right to maintain public health
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right to a healthy living environment free from pollution
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the right to environmentally stable climate conditions
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the right to restore one's natural cycles
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the right to be legally represented in cases of threat or harm
This allows authorities to intervene when activities such as deforestation, pesticide use or habitat destruction threaten bee colonies. Harm to pollinators can now be considered legal harm.
Test example of conservation law
Similar legal frameworks have granted rights to rivers and forests in some parts of the world, but the insects have remained largely invisible to the law. By expanding legal recognition of pollinators, Satipo's ruling tests whether conservation law can protect not only landscapes, but also the species that keep those landscapes functioning.
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Article sources
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