POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
depending on the presence and/or absence of the sting.
Bees and wasps are protected from human exploitation by
guardian spirits of plants and animals called encantados
(Costa-Neto, 1998).
5.2.7.3 Mental maps and animal
behaviour knowledge as management
practices
Knowledge in itself is a vital management practice for
honey-hunters. For example, the Solega people of
southern India have extensive mental maps of the location
of individual trees and significant harvesting sites in the
forest. Their knowledge of different migration and settling
patterns of the various honey bee species of the region,
and of their breeding schedules, is vital to their honeyhunting
technologies (Si, 2013). Detailed knowledge of local
people about behaviour of Apis spp. underpins diverse
swarm capture, especially of wild swarms around the
world (Marchenay, 1979). Indigenous people in Yuracaré,
Cochabamba, Bolivia have detailed knowledge of the
native birds that are pollinators of the forest, the trees
that they pollinate, and their behaviour, which is vital to
their customary forest usage (Castellón-Chávez and Rea,
2000). The Jenu-Keruba people, honey hunters in Kodagu
southern India, identify 25 different micro-habitats in their
forest and take advantage of four different bee species
producing honey in habitats and seasons (Demps et
al., 2012a).
5.2.7.4 Fire management to enhance
pollination resources
Vegetation fires in bear ‘grass’ (Xerophyllum tenax, in the
Lilieaceae family), pollinated by pollen-eating flies (primarily
members of the family Syrphidae), beetles (primarily
Cosmosalia and Epicauta spp.), and small bees (Vance et
al., 2004), are managed by First Nations peoples in northern
America to ensure production of this grass and promote
qualities suitable for contemporary traditional purposes,
such as basketry that requires strong, flexible, straight
leaves (Charnley and Hummel, 2011). Traditional First Nation
fire practices “favored beargrass, its habitat, its cultural
uses, its flowers, and presumably, associated pollinator
communities as well as other species that use it for food,
habitat, and nesting material” (Charnley and Hummel, 2011).
Experiments on abandoned farmland in south-eastern
USA have found that fire promotes pollinator visitation
indirectly through increasing the density of flowering plants,
in that case the forb Verbesina alternifolia, suggesting the
usefulness of fire management as a tool for supporting
pollination (Van Nuland et al., 2013).
5.2.7.5 Manipulation of pollination
resources in different seasons and
landscapes patches
Diverse management practices manipulate and access
different resources in different parts of the landscape at
different seasons. In the Petalangan community in Indonesia,
pollination is enhanced through seasonal patterns of
planting and harvesting, so that bees (Apis dorsata and Apis
florea) can nest up to four times a year in the sialang trees,
in accord with the flowering of different crops and during
the slash and burn period that opens the forest to start
planting (Titinbk, 2013). In the Kerio Valley of Kenya, papaya
farmers maintain hedgerows for both practical, aesthetic
and cultural reasons that conserve habitat and resources for
hawkmoth pollinators of this dioecious pollinator-dependent
crop (Martins and Johnson, 2009). Similar patterns can be
observed in relation to cacao and biodiversity in Ghana (Rice
and Greenberg, 2000; Frimpong et al., 2011) and cowpea in
Nigeria (Hordzi et al., 2010).
Farmers in Roslagen (Sweden) protect bumble bees as
important pollinators, including by restricting cutting of a tree
species that flowers in early spring when other pollen- and
nectar-producing plants are rare. In both locations, pollinator
presence is further enhanced by the making of beehives and
the management of field boundaries and mixed land that
provides suitable insect habitat (Tengö and Belfrage, 2004).
Producers of maracuyá (Passiflora edulis, passionfruit)
in Colombia highly value pollinators, particularly black
carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.) which use dry trunks as their
main habitat. Social bees (Apis mellifera and Trigona spp.)
and hummingbirds are also important, and all three groups
depend on proximity to forest. Farmers value the pollination
from the forest highly (Calle et al., 2010).
5.2.7.6 Biotemporal indicators for
management actions
Seasonal “biotemporal” indicators, or “indigenous knowledge
markers” trigger diverse management practices (Leonard et
al., 2013; Athayde, 2015). Flowering is the main indicator
of times for honey harvests among Indonesian forest
communities (Césard and Heri, 2015) (Case example 5-6).
Among the Kawaiwete (Kaiabi) people in the Brazilian
Amazon, indicator species inform the start of the rainy and
dry season. Kupeirup, a powerful female ancestral being,
created crops and taught her sons how a flock of birds (a
type of parrot) announces the right time to burn the fields
(Silva and Athayde, 2002). The Boran people from Kenya
deduce the direction and the distance to the honey nest from
the greater honeyguide’s (Indicator indicator) flight pattern,
perching height and calls, and reward the bird with food that
is more accessible after they have opened the nests (Isack
and Reyer, 1989). Interactions with honey-guides have been
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5. BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY, POLLINATORS AND
THEIR SOCIO-CULTURAL VALUES