Biopiracy in Mexico | Foundation stealing wild beehives in Yucatán
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| Jobones. Courtesy of Jorge Abeja. |
Beyond the GMO threat is the theft
of biological resources
BEEKEEPERS ISSUE CONDEMNATION
OF PRIVATE FOUNDATION
Devon G. Peña
| Seattle, WA | June 14, 2018
We have
been reporting on the ongoing struggles of Mayan beekeepers for several years now
ever since indigenous peoples filed suit against Monsanto, other corporations,
and the Mexican government over the illegal planting of GMO corn, soy, and other
crops despite a federal ban on these substances. To read more start with our
posts of October
25, 2015 and the most recent of May
15, 2018; to find all our coverage, type “beekeepers” in the search window
in the upper right-hand corner of this page.
We have
also reported on how GMOs are not the only threat to the Mayan beekeepers. We have
pointed at deforestation—which is associated with a considerable amount of
illegal logging and the expansion of agribusiness monoculture plantations—as
another major menace to biocultural diversity and indigenous autonomy in Southeastern
Mexico. A new report indicates that illegal takings of wild beehives is a
previously undisclosed threat to Mayan indigenous beekeepers and their kin-centric
ecosystems. The impunity with which capitalist behavior continues never ceases to amaze.
According
to a May 28, 2018 report in the online Mexican news network, Grieta,
the Múuch 'Xíinbal Assembly sent a letter to the network’s editorial office
where it reiterates its accusation against the Melipona Maya Foundation (FMM) and its president, and urges the
cooperatives of Tulum not to sign any agreement, under the concepts of the Nagoya
Protocol, which would legalize the dispossession of the Mayan people. The
FMM website is currently off-line and “under maintenance.”
At the
heart of this attack is the theft of jobones
– the shortened tree logs with cores carved out to make homes for the beehives.
These are considered a sacred cultural resource associated with ritual
obligations among indigenous beekeepers who have developed a relationship with the
bioregion’s wild stingless bee population (Melipona) over thousands of years.
The U-Hanli-Cab ritual ceremony is part of the fulfillment of these obligations. These cultural practices are being disrupted by an act of misappropriation of biological resources that have long been under the care of indigenous beekeepers. This reveals how the cultural impacts of biopiracy include the dispossession of native people from access to the ecological partners of biocultural diversity developed over dozens of generations of partnership between native people and Melipona populations.
The Mexican wild
bee tribe counts with more than 40 species found as far north as
Tamaulipas to the southeastern states of Chiapas, Campeche, and Yucatán and beyond across
a wide range of life zones and ecological conditions. Across their habitat,
these precious wild pollinator populations have experienced a rapid decline–93
percent over the past quarter century according to a report by Villanueva,
et al. 2005.
The justification
for this theft is all the more incredulous since the FMM proclaims, without indigenous
authority, to be working on the conservation of the genetic diversity of the
Melipona populations. The Foundation has commercialized the products it makes
from this act of extractive colonialism. This environmental violence is cloaked under a conservationist veil so the Foundation can seek donations based on the misrepresentation of indigenous knowledge.
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| Screenshot of Ballot-Flurin Facebook page featuring the MELIPONA product line that includes: Lip balm, hand creams, skin and serum vials, all made with Melipona honey. The link also gives an explanation about honey bees, and the benefits of their honey. Courtesy of Mayapolitikon. |
The settler
colonial logic underlying Mr. Palnieri’s justification for this act of environmental
and cultural violence is an obnoxious example of the old “white male savior”
trope. Indeed, my sources suggest he has used religious allegories to convince
Mayan elders to participate in this crime. Obviously, his intrusion has been
rejected but the Foundation has done a lot of damage already at a time when the
bees and their keepers face a precipitous crisis in the decline of these sacred
pollinators.
Below is my
translation of the letter submitted to the Mexican press by the Mayan
territorial assembly of Muuch 'Xiinbal with a Merida date mark. Please join me
and visit and like the homepage of the Mayan assembly, which represents some 20
distinct beekeeping communities. For the home page of the Múuch 'Xíinbal
Assembly go to: Facebook.
Support their struggle; make the link; circulate resistance.
Asemblea
Muuch 'Xiinbal Denunciation of Biopiracy
Stop the
biopiracy in Mayan land. The Mayan people do not sell themselves, they are not
mocked, they are not threatened. The Assembly of Defenders of the Mayan
Territory "Múuch Xíinbal" points out that the complaint presented on
May 1 against the Melipona Maya Foundation A.C. (FMM) and its president, Mr.
Stephane Palmieri, is based on truthful information with supporting evidence.
The FMM has
plundered the jungle, has engaged in dispossession, and cultural crimes against
the Mayan people. The sacking of the jungle for the extraction of hives of
honey bees, the outburst of dispossession
of sacred jobones that are traditional in the Mayan communities, the cultural
crime committed with the destruction of jobones to promote their
technification, the folklorization of ceremonies Mayas for the benefit of the
FMM that safeguards the interests of "use fruit of honey" and not for
the Mayan people and their ancestral practices; the implementation of the “Rescue
plan of genetic patrimony with more than two hundred mothers hives” acquired through
theft and ecological crime, the business model of the FMM where indigenous
communities are given back the stolen seed of Melipona, and more, It is
published through texts and videos in different sections of the same
institutional page of the Fundación Melipona Maya AC.
How much is
so little? However, despite all the denounced facts, the FMM's response in its
May 17 communiqué, cynically argues that they have returned more than they
confess to having stolen and destroyed, with the accounts always different and conflicted
so that the total number of hives that have been ransacked it is not
understood. The truth is that nothing at all compensates for the size of the
aggression committed.
Mr. Stephane
Palmieri boasts of being the messiah and redeemer of the Melipona in Tulum, but
it is also time to put a stop to his fantasy. The fact that the FMM has lent
some of the plundered hives to new Mayan families on “loan” does not mean that
the honey bee did not exist in Tulum, or that the natives owe “al salvador” the return of the
meliponiculture to teach them to spend the more than two hundred hives stolen
from the boxes and extract the honey with a syringe. The meliponiculture, even
with its recent decline by multiple factors, has always persisted in the lots
of the Mayan communities.
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