🌅 The First Bees with Formal Legal Rights

SOURCE

Earth Law Center

WHAT TO KNOW

• Two provinces in Peru have passed local ordinances granting legal rights to stingless bees in the Peruvian Amazon, formally giving the bees the fundamental right to exist and flourish in a healthy environment within the provinces. The new laws give the Peruvian Amazon’s 175 stingless bee species the right to a healthy population, a habitat free from pollution and shocks due to climate change, and, most importantly, to be legally represented in cases of threat or harm.

WHY IT MATTERS

• The ordinances—passed in Satipo in October and Nauta last month—make the bees the world’s first insects to receive formal legal rights. Experts say Peru’s stingless bees are a key contributor to ecological health in the Amazon and help pollinate the majority of its flora, including globally important crops like coffee, chocolate, avocados, and blueberries. The bees are also culturally and spiritually important to Peru’s Indigenous peoples, who have used the bees’ honey, pollen, and propolis (a.k.a., “bee glue”) for centuries.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• The ordinances represent the latest effort in the global “rights of nature” movement, which seeks to protect biodiversity by granting animals and ecosystems similar legal rights as those given to humans and corporations. The movement has also helped afford legal rights to sea turtles in Panama and all wild animals in Ecuador.