Stingless bees from the Amazon granted legal rights in world first

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1. Hi r/environment, this is Jake from The Guardian. We wanted to share this story we published today about a groundbreaking legal case from Peru, which has granted rights to a species of bee that is under threat from deforestation.

   *From The Guardian:*

   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.

   It means that 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.

   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.

   [*You can read the full story for free at this link.*](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/29/stingless-bees-from-the-amazon-granted-legal-rights-in-world-first?referring_host=Reddit&utm_campaign=guardianacct)

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