Beekeepers protect Peru’s Amazon Rainforest

In January 2026, I travelled deep into the Peruvian Amazon, along the Marañon River to the Indigenous Kukama-Kukamiria communities near Nauta in the Loreto region. The river was high and slow-moving, reflecting the vast canopy that still stands, but the pressure on this forest is constant.

Illegal mining, logging, and land use change continue to drive deforestation across the Amazon. For many Indigenous families, small-scale farming and cacao production are the only reliable sources of income. To survive, land must often be cleared or expanded. When income depends on cutting forest, conservation becomes almost impossible.

But there is another way.

Student watching a stingless bee nest entrance.

Through our partnership with Bees for Development, we are strengthening Indigenous-led stingless beekeeping across Kukama-Kukamiria and Ashaninka territories. This expedition focused on building capacity: training new beekeepers, supporting experienced meliponicultores, and expanding community bee sanctuaries that protect thousands of hectares of standing rainforest.

Stingless bees are native to the Amazon. They have been part of Indigenous culture for generations, their honey used as medicine, food, and ceremony. Unlike large-scale agriculture, keeping stingless bees requires no forest clearing. In fact, the opposite is true. The healthier the forest, the stronger the bees.

Teaching stingless bee biology and beekeeping methods near Loreto

Wild stingless bee colony

During our workshops in Nauta, elders, women, and youth gathered together under wooden community shelters to learn advanced hive management, colony multiplication, and honey quality control. We worked side by side, combining scientific tools with ancestral knowledge. Laughter mixed with serious concentration as new hives were carefully opened and inspected.

For many families, stingless beekeeping represents something powerful: income directly linked to forest conservation. Honey production has low start-up costs and requires limited labour compared to expanding cacao plots. A single healthy colony can provide reliable harvests while pollinating surrounding trees and crops, strengthening biodiversity and food security.

In Ashaninka territories further south, this model has already shown impact. Communities that once depended solely on farming are now generating complementary income from honey, propolis, and value-added products. More importantly, forests remain standing. Bees create an economic reason to protect trees.

What I witnessed again this January was not just training, it was leadership emerging. Young Indigenous trainees stepping forward to become future trainers. Women organising hive groups. Elders sharing stories of how their grandparents harvested wild honey long before roads and external pressures arrived.

Beekeepers are going beyond producing honey, they are becoming conservation leaders. When income is rooted in biodiversity, protecting the forest becomes a rational economic choice, not a sacrifice. The Amazon does not need saving from the outside. It needs investment in the people who have protected it for generations.

By supporting our Earth Raise Challenge, you can enable this life-changing work to continue and grow. Every donation, no matter the size, will be doubled, allowing us to reach even more people and doubling our impact.

New stingless beekeepers with their hives near Loreto