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
tripled from 464 to 1,237, and the number of hives doubled
from 1,677 to more than 3,500 between 2008 and 2013,
leading to concerns that there were insufficient floral
resources to keep bees healthy (Ratnieks and Alton, 2013).
In Germany, the number of beekeepers has increased
by 53% since 2012, and bee-keeping has emerged as a
popular ecologically-inspired urban lifestyle phenomenon,
alongside growing markets for locally-produced honey
(Lorenz and Stark, 2015).
In Sargodha and Chakwal districts of Pakistan, beekeeping
activities teach and educate the communities about the
values of cooperation in life (Qaiser et al., 2013). Beekeeping
activities pass on knowledge about pollination for the
youth and rural people in India (Sharma et al., 2012). The
Bee Hunt! Program in the USA involves students across
the nation in photographing bees, uploading spatiallylocated
observations and photos to a data-sharing Internet
site, enabling understanding of bee distribution relative
to drivers such as pesticides, and provides resources
to empower them to take action to solve bee problems
through technology, education and policy advocacy (Mueller
and Pickering, 2010). Beekeeping can also lead to new
knowledge. For example, one Spanish beekeeper has
found that a moth species, Galleria mellonella, regarded as
plague for bees, is actually an ally that cleans spores and
microorganisms from the hives (Santoja, 2005).
5.2.5 Nature’s gift: practices of
ILK-holders and their extent of
influence (holistic valuation)
Global data on the extent of the Earth’s surface under
ownership, management and use by indigenous peoples
and local communities, are not yet available, a key
knowledge gap that needs to be addressed for ongoing
biodiversity and ecosystem service assessment. Available
data suggest ILK systems provide the foundation for
ongoing conservation, management and use of ecosystems
over large parts of the planet (Chhatre and Agrawal, 2009;
Gómez-Baggethun and Reyes-García, 2013; Kelemen et
al., 2013). For example, the area of forests owned by, or
designated for, indigenous peoples and local communities in
Lower and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) has increased
from 21% in 2002 to 30% in 2013 as rights-recognition
has strengthened in some countries. (White and Martin,
2002; Rights and Resources Initiative, 2014). Kothari et al.
(2012) estimate that Indigenous and Community Conserved
Areas 4 may cover as much as 13% of the Earth’s terrestrial
surface. Indigenous peoples number around 370 million,
and live in all regions of the world (Secretariat of the United
4. Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) have been
defined by IUCN as ‘natural and/or modified ecosystems, containing
significant biodiversity values, ecological benefits and cultural values,
voluntarily conserved by indigenous peoples and local communities,
through customary laws or other effective means’ (Kothari et al., 2012).
Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 2014).
Nevertheless, many communities are losing land they have
occupied for centuries or millennia because of limited
recognition of their rights (van Vliet et al., 2012; Rights and
Resources Initiative, 2014; Césard and Heri, 2015; Perez,
2015; Samorai Lengoisa, 2015).
Among local communities, part of the 55% of global
population who are rural, many are farmers (IFAD, 2011).
Small holding farmers in local communities hold knowledge
adapted to understanding and managing local ecologies
and land capabilities, including of soil fauna and properties,
tree dynamics and genetic diversity, landscape-scale
vegetation patches, crop diversity, livestock resources and
agroforestry species (Netting, 1993; von Glasenapp and
Thornton, 2011; Gao et al., 2012; Pauli et al., 2012; FAO,
2014a; Segnon et al., 2015; Valencia et al., 2015). Small
holdings (less than 2 ha) constitute 8-16% of global farm
land, 83% of the farms and 83% of the global population
involved in agriculture (IFAD, 2013; Lowder et al., 2014;
Steward et al., 2014).
5.2.6 Practices for valuing
diversity and fostering biocultural
diversity of stingless bees and
pollination resources in central
and South America
Many indigenous peoples are known to value diversity in
itself, to appreciate the existence of many different living
and non-living entities as important (Tsing, 2005; Rival and
McKey, 2008). This translates into recognizing and naming
very fine distinctions in domains such as landscapes,
wild species and cultivated varieties. Observations of
these distinctions enable Indigenous peoples and local
communities to collect, experiment and select varieties and
species. Indigenous peoples in central and south America
domesticated many pollinator-dependent crops that are
now cultivated globally, including legumes (common bean,
lima beans, peanut), cucurbits (chayote, pumpkins, squash),
solanaceous fruits (capsicum peppers, husk tomato,
pepino, tomato), fruits and nuts (blueberry, brambles,
cactus pear, cashew, papaya, pineapple, strawberry),
beverage crops (cacao, mate), ornamentals (dahlia, fuchsia,
sunflower), industrial crops (cotton, rubber, tobacco), tubers
(cassava, potato, sweet potato) and pineapples whose
seed production requires pollination (Janick, 2013). This
valuable diversity translates into a wide array of connections
(relational values) with a wider array of pollinators and their
products, including honey, pollen, resins, and oils. For
example, the Wayapi people of Guyana and Brazil recognise
17 different varieties of honey that each come from a
different stingless bee species, each with a specific name
(Grenand, 1972).