At COP30, I’ll Speak for the Bees
The plight of Peru's native bees shines a light on the interconnecting challenges in food production and nature, deforestation, monoculture, and agrochemicals.
When I travel to Belém for COP30, I won’t be following the intricacies of climate negotiations or tracking the high-level plenaries. I’m going to use my time there to talk about native bees. And how paying attention to them opens up a world of interconnections between our food, climate, and biodiversity, and why agrochemicals are at the heart of their decline.
I'm a Quechua-speaking descendant of InKawasi, a community in the northern Andes of Lambayeque, Peru. I am a chemical engineer, ecopreneur, keeper of native bees, and environmental activist, and over my lifetime, I’ve seen my mountain ecosystem collapse, and with it our native bees.
Bees are far more than cute and charismatic; they are keystone species, pivotal in food production and ecology, especially as three-quarters of the world’s crops depend on pollinators like bees. When bees suffer, so do we. This sums up the importance of the Quechua saying, "Sumak Kawsay," which means "a plentiful life, in harmony with nature," and that’s why I’ve named my honey enterprise after it.
Where I live, our native bees are stingless and produce much smaller quantities of honey, which has been long used and valued by Indigenous communities for its medicinal properties.
As much as we need local, bottom-up initiatives, our governments and decision-makers must implement policies to address the negative impact of agrochemicals and their contribution to the climate crisis, loss of species and biodiversity, and adverse health effects.
This honey has been a powerful force in my own life. When I felt I had lost my path after studying engineering, an Indigenous healer fed me a spoonful of stingless bee honey at a ceremony. It was in that moment that I knew I had to work on restoring these bees and my mountain. I soon learned the fate of both is intrinsically connected.
Unlike the honeybees that came from Europe, these are especially adapted to pollinate endemic trees, plants, and crops. Without them, the extinction of our native species hangs in the balance—and farmers’ crops suffer.
But farming itself is driving their drastic decline: Forests have been cut down to make way for coffee, cassava, corn, and sugar monocultures—toppling the ancient, hollow grandfather trees in which they make their hives. Where there are fewer trees, there is less water, and my mountain has become desolate. As natural biodiversity that regulates pests disappears, farmers began to use pesticides to kill weeds and increase yields, damaging insect and plant life even more, including our native bees.
Research by the Center for Biological Diversity found that 40% of global pollinators are highly threatened due to intensive farming and pesticide use. In Latin America, 25% fewer bee species were reported in 2015 compared with 1990. This is a vicious cycle happening all over the world, especially in the Amazon, where COP30 is taking place.
Seven years since my realization, my enterprise works to protect native bees, restore their habitats, protect forests, and empower women. We’ve set up a honey social enterprise and pollination school, the "Women Guardians of the Native Bees" program, launched this year to empower 60 Quechua and peasant women through stingless beekeeping, encouraging local farmers and women to protect bees, collect their honey, and recognize the crucial role of pollinators in food production and nature restoration. The focus on bees is about much more than just the honey; it’s a gateway to a wider understanding of the natural world and the cycle of restoration, renewal, and preservation.
I run workshops with local farmers and communities to raise awareness about the dangers of pesticides and encourage learning of agroecological approaches to tackle pests instead of toxic chemicals. This is ancestral knowledge; our parents and grandparents have it, but we’ve lost it with the introduction of industrially produced agrochemicals. Instead, it’s about observing nature and re-instilling a curiosity about how beings interact—what pesticides do to habitats and ecology, and how introducing native species can have domino effects.
We teach them how to create habitats and nests for bees and how to collect their honey, treasured for its lower sugar content and medicinal properties. This bit is crucial. We buy their honey at a fair price if they commit to agroecological practices. These producers and farms now form the "La Ruta de la Miel de Abeja" (The Bee Honey Route) that we’ve built with local women who take tourists to connect with bees, nature, and communities.
The snowball effect is immense; it encourages farmers to stop using pesticides and restore the habitat for bees, generates income for women, and funds our mountain restoration. We have now planted more than 2,000 native trees and are preserving three species of stingless bees. We have a long way to go, but it is the rebirth of our mountain ecosystem.
It also proves that Sumak Kawsay—living in harmony with nature—is possible.
So when I am at COP30 in Belém, this is the message I will carry. I’ll do what I know best: use bees as a way to shine a light on the interconnecting challenges in food production and nature, deforestation, monoculture, and agrochemicals. We have Indigenous solutions available, like our pollination schools and honey cooperatives, but we need more resources to scale them up and empower farmers.
But as much as we need local, bottom-up initiatives, our governments and decision-makers must implement policies to address the negative impact of agrochemicals and their contribution to the climate crisis, loss of species and biodiversity, and adverse health effects. We need resources and support for food producers, farm workers, and communities to break the stranglehold of agrochemicals and shift to agroecology. It must be a Just Transition that provides us with the social and economic mechanisms to adapt to this change.
While I am at COP30, I will say enough is enough. We need to phase out toxic agrochemicals and restore the balance between people, food, climate, and nature.
