POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
CASE EXAMPLE 5-6
BIOTEMPORAL INDICATORS FOR HONEY HUNTING
Location: East Kalimantan, Indonesia
Punan indigenous peoples and local communities
In East Kalimantan, the Punan Kelay’s (in Berau Regency)
practices of bee-hunting are full of rituals that are stimulated by
biotemporal indicators (Inoue and Lugan-Bilung, 1991). Natural
signs trigger honey harvesting activities (Widagdo, 2011). If they
hear certain calling of birds, they refrain from climbing the trees,
because it is an indicator that the process will not be successful
or may be dangerous. Before they start harvesting, traditionally
they “call” the bees by the keluwung ceremony early in the
honey season – usually around early October. The ritual involves
erecting a tree branch and forming “nest like” figures from clay,
followed by a ceremonial ritual expulsion of ghost/spirits from
the tree, by throwing a partridge egg to the base of the tree. All
these rituals are performed by chanting and praying, including a
Christian element to traditional ceremonies (Widagdo, 2011).
Among the Punan Tubu (in Malinau Regency), the season for
honey harvesting is signaled by the flowering of meranti (Shorea
spp.), sago palm and several fruit trees, accompanied by
singing of birds (e.g., great argus pheasant Agursianus argus)
and cicadas, and followed by the breeding season for the wild
pig (Sus barbatus). Hordes of boars migrate in anticipation of
fruits. The mythology of the Punan Tubu tell of the link between
bees on huge tree branches and pigs underneath since the
creation time (Mamung and Abot, 2000).
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5. BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY, POLLINATORS AND
THEIR SOCIO-CULTURAL VALUES
found to increase the rate of finding honey by Hadza people
in northern Tanzania by 560% (Wood et al., 2014). The Ogiek
people of Kenya use two types of birds for indicators when
honey-hunting in the forest, and have migratory patterns that
follow the production of different bees in the lowlands and
the highlands (Samorai Lengoisa, 2015).
5.2.7.7 Providing pollinator nesting
resources
Management practices for pollinators link landscape
management with traditional housing in the Nile delta.
Egyptian clover, part of mandated crop rotation, is pollinated
by Megachile spp. (solitary bees) that nest in tunnels in the
walls of mud houses. The bees depend on people to create
a dynamic nesting habitat by constantly renewed mud walls,
alfalfa and clover fields. However, populations of Megachile
spp. in mud houses have been displaced or eliminated as
modern brick and cement block buildings have replaced
traditional mud houses (FAO, 2008). In Bolivia, one particular
stingless social bee (“chakalari”) is well known locally, in
part because it makes its hives on the sides of the adobe
houses (FAO, 2008). Other stingless bees like T. angustula,
a species very appreciated for its honey, also use any cavity
or container available in the houses to build their nests
(Nates-Parra, 2005).
5.2.8 Diversified farming systems
that influence agrobiodiversity,
pollinators and pollination
Diversified farming systems of Indigenous peoples and local
communities across the globe contribute to maintenance
of pollinators and pollination resources, and represent
an important multi-functional alternative and adjunct to
industrial agriculture (Kremen et al., 2012). These farms
integrate the use of a mix of crops and/or animals in the
production system. They employ a suite of farming practices
that have been found to promote agro-biodiversity across
scales (from within the farm to the surrounding landscape),
and incorporate ILK systems, often involving hybrid forms of
knowledge, negotiated between science, practice, technical,
and traditions (Barber et al., 2014). These farming practices
in reality merge with the landscape management practices
in the previous section. Here we consider some pollinationrelated
aspects of several farming systems: swidden
cultivation; home gardens; commodity agro-forestry; and
farming bees.
5.2.8.1 Shifting cultivation
Swidden (shifting cultivation) systems, demonstrating
diverse interdependencies with pollinators, remain important
in tropical forest systems throughout the world, and are the
dominant land-use in some regions (van Vliet et al., 2012; Li
et al., 2014). For example, the traditional Mayan Milpa, multicropping
swidden cultivation, produces a patchy landscape
with forests in different stages of succession through spatial
and temporal rotation, a dynamic system that produces a
diverse array of plants, nearly all of which are pollinated by
insects, birds and bats (Ford, 2008). Milpa has co-created
some, and fostered much, of current forest plant diversity
and composition during millennia of gardening the forest
(Ford and Nigh, 2015). This system produces a territory of
farms that combine agricultural, forestry and stockbreeding
activities, organized around a domestic group, depending
on local knowledge on the vegetation species and their
uses, the domesticated animals and the crop systems
(Estrada et al., 2011) (Case example 5-7).