Veronica 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 Castrejon
Feb. 7, 2023
How Maya stingless beekeeping can help us become better stewards of culture, the environment
For a听 PhD candidate the vital contribution of to the design of ecological cities, food sovereignty, and sociocultural well-being in the Yucatan Peninsula is a powerful example.听
How this traditional practice can inform these dynamics is at the heart of Veronica 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 Castrej贸n鈥檚 research 鈥 鈥Unveiling Maya Stingless Beekeeping in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico鈥 鈥斕齣n the southeast of Mexico.
An ancestral practice, Maya stingless beekeeping integrates ecological and cultural ways of knowing that are linked intrinsically with Maya dwellings, traditional crops, and native species in the tropical forests of the Yucatan Peninsula.听
鈥Pollinators like the Maya stingless bees are not only important for our food crops and to sustain the way we live, but also because they are part of the ways of being and knowing of the Maya, a culture that has a lot to share, including its wise knowledge and its relationship with nature and with life,鈥 says听叠谤颈蝉别帽辞.
According to 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞, this practice represents a vital and interdependent balance of cultural norms and local biodiversity that has defined the management of the Maya territories in a sustainable manner for thousands of years.听听
As part of the study, 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 also examines the power relations that, from the Maya perspective, undermine traditional stingless beekeeping practices and knowledge, such as current industrial projects that negatively impact the ecosystem, and traditional Maya dwellings and crops.
Urbanization and Maya stingless bees听
International mega projects, industrial agrobusiness, solar panel and wind farms, mega pork farms, and deforestation for touristic and residential developments across the Yucatan peninsula profoundly impact and change the traditional dynamics in Maya communities, says 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞.听
These stressors dramatically impact pollinators such as bees, insects, birds, and bats, who affect 75 per cent of the world's crop production and almost 90 per cent of the leading food crops worldwide.听Currently, more than 40 per cent of wild pollinator species are at risk of extinction.听听
For this reason, 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 studies the ancient design of Maya beekeeping and dwellings and compares them to the Maya biocultural landscapes and experiences of today, showcasing how Maya beekeeping has been impacted, what lessons can be brought back from the ancestral past, and how this learning can help preserve Maya stingless beekeeping.听
Furthermore, native stingless bees, and Indigenous Maya traditional stingless beekeepers and peasants, are key to sustaining tropical forest, the last lungs of the world, 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 says.
鈥淚t鈥檚 urgent that we analyze the human impact in all of this, with biodiversity at the centre.听It鈥檚 equally critical that we look at the ways we relate to one another, and that we look at production, within our habitat, in a different way,鈥 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 says. 鈥We depend on each other to survive.鈥
Inspiration for the study听听
Many years ago, before starting her doctorate at SAPL, 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 founded Aula Verde, a non-profit organization in Mexico that brought environmental education to children in elementary school.
Veronica 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 Castrejon
Her yearning to raise younger generations鈥 awareness about the iconic stingless bees, traditionally known as ko鈥檕lel kaab and depicted in the Maya Tro-Cortesiano Codex (one of three surviving pre-Columbian听Maya books听dating to the Postclassic period of听Mesoamerican chronology) inspired 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 to visit the Yucatan Peninsula.
鈥淚t was unforgettable. They are harmonious and I just fell in love with them,鈥 recalls 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞. 鈥淪o, I decided to understand their problems and their beekeepers, who are Maya people.鈥听
As part of her research, 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 learned more about the Mayan language to better communicate with the community, including traditional milperos (multi crop and corn sowers) and farmers, who hailed mainly from the Quintana Roo State.听But the insights she gained go beyond the agricultural and the terrestrial.
鈥淲ords are not enough to express how much is embraced in the marvellous Maya cosmogony and their philosophy,鈥 she says.听听
Lessons learned听
Before this study, 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞 wanted to better understand how, through her background as an architect, she can impact not only the territories of bees, but also on habitats at large.听
听鈥淚 believe that this study makes the case to reclaim the values of respect and reciprocal well-being within our environment,鈥 she says.
鈥淏etter understanding Maya stingless beekeeping practice will also help us to acknowledge and learn more from different ways of knowing and being, such as their traditional agricultural systems, vernacular architecture, and their cultural approaches.鈥听听
The ancestral Maya built green cities. So, for 叠谤颈蝉别帽辞, it鈥檚 important to learn from them in order to build our cities in a manner that is more ecologically sound, socially sustainable, without racism, and with greater participatory democracy 鈥斕齠rom the dwelling to the forest.听
鈥淲e must allow ourselves to see and learn from other ways of living, to relate to nature and to find new ways to construct our urban environment.鈥听
This research is funded by a grant from the (U.K.), and is supervised by Dr. David Monteyne, PhD, at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Alberta鈥檚 only architecture school.