POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
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5. BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY, POLLINATORS AND
THEIR SOCIO-CULTURAL VALUES
including fragmented multi-level administrative
units, mismatches between fine-scale variation in
practices that protect pollinators and homogenizing
broad-scale government policy, contradictory policy
goals across sectors and contests over land use
(established but incomplete). Co-ordinated, collaborative
action and knowledge sharing that forges linkages across
sectors (e.g., agriculture and nature conservation), across
jurisdictions (e.g., private, Government, not-for-profit), and
among levels (e.g., local, national, global) can overcome
many of these governance deficits. The establishment of
social norms, habits, and motivation that are the key to
effective governance outcomes involves long time frames
(5.4.2.8, 5.4.7.4).
Foreword to Chapter 5
Pollination, there are many pollinators, not just bees. For
example, the birds that fly from one place to another.
Bees fly from one branch to another and carry with them
the pollen and maybe we see a change in the colour of
the trees. An ant visits a flower, travelling to another one,
carrying the pollen from one to the next… Seeing all of this,
I have to say that the Guna have a different way of seeing
things. We don’t see things in their parts, everything is
more holistic. When we see a human being, we don’t just
see two ears, that person has his or her own intelligence.
We all need each other—animals, plants and humans.
All beings are alive—rocks have their spirit because they
help us, perhaps in traditional medicine. Our world is very
different, no one dedicates him or herself to just one activity.
Belisario López, oral presentation p.41 (López et al. 2015)
(Figure 5-1).
FIGURE 5-1
Mola, embroidered cloth made by Guna people, of
bee and butterfly spirits. © The Guna People.
We do not see pollination as a separate theme. Rather that
everything— trees, rivers, the wind, even human beings—
participates in the process. We cannot separate them.
Elmer Enrico Gonzalez López, oral presentation p 42 (López
et al. 2015).
A group of Guna people, as representatives of the host
people, attended the Global Dialogue Workshop on ILK of
pollination and pollinators associated with food production,
Panama City, 1-5 December 2014 (Lyver et al., 2015).
These quotations are taken from their oral presentations at
the Workshop.
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.1.1 Diversity of knowledge
systems and the IPBES
Conceptual Framework
This chapter addresses the topics identified in the scoping
study (IPBES 2/17, p. 71) as “non-economic valuation, with
special emphasis on the experience of indigenous and local
communities, of impacts of the decline of diversity and/or
populations of pollinators… Management and mitigation
options as appropriate to different visions, approaches and
knowledge systems”. The IPBES Conceptual Framework,
which recognises that the world views of people influence
their understandings about nature, and nature’s benefits
to people and good quality of life, underpins the approach
to the chapter (Díaz et al., 2015a). For example, nature’s
benefits to people can be understood as ecosystem
services, such as those provided by bees to pollinate several
The use of this image is a collective right owned by the
Guna People, that has been authorized by the Guna
General Congress according to the Resolution No. 1
of 22 November 2002 issued by the Department of
Industrial Property Registry of the Ministry of Commerce
and Industry.