Stingless Bees Become First Insects to Gain Legal Rights
- Editor OGN Daily
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Wild, stingless bees have been granted legal rights in some parts of Peru, the latest effort in the growing global movement to protect animals by giving them similar status as people.
Two provinces in Peru have now granted legal rights to stingless bees - meaning they now have the fundamental right to exist and flourish in a healthy environment, without pollution, habitat loss, climate change, human activity or other threats getting in the way of their survival. Humans can also file lawsuits on the insects’ behalf. Peru is home to at least 175 species of stingless bees, which play vital roles in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest ecosystem.
This marks a “turning point in our relationship with nature: it makes stingless bees visible, recognizes them as rights-bearing subjects and affirms their essential role in preserving ecosystems,” Constanza Prieto, the Latin America legal director at the Earth Law Center, tells the Guardian.
The newly adopted stingless bee ordinances in Peru are the latest examples of the “rights of nature” movement, which aims to combat the global biodiversity crisis by strengthening legal protections for animals and ecosystems. Though a handful of other creatures have been granted legal rights - such as sea turtles in Panama and all wild animals in Ecuador - experts say these are the first such instances involving insects.
Other non-humans that have been granted legal rights include a chalk stream in England, the waves at the mouth of the Dolce River in Brazil (the first instance in which a government has conferred rights upon part of the ocean), and in New Zealand - in a world-first law - one of the planet's most remote rainforests has been passed back to its Indigenous owners and granted the same legal status as people.