Supporting beekeeping restoration and livelihoods

To encourage local community interest in rehabilitation and biodiversity conservation it is vital to consider and integrate the needs of the people from a livelihood perspective. The development and provision of support to alternative livelihoods like agroforestry-beekeeping gives people economic incentives for the preservation of natural habitats (e.g. incentive for planting trees, plant protection) which are beneficial to biodiversity conservation and aids in poverty alleviation. It is an initiative that promotes forest conservation through biodiversity-friendly agroforestry-beekeeping initiatives.

In Seychelles, however, there is a lack of knowledge on the importance of bees and agroforest produce for habitat rehabilitation; and their importance as sustainable economic initiatives providing a source of income for practitioners and for food security. Moreover, there is a need to enhance knowledge on the consequences of land degradation on biodiversity and livelihoods, and the importance of habitat rehabilitation to mitigate these impacts. Hence, the need to raise awareness and skills development amongst the general public, beekeepers, agroforesters, conservation agents, policy and decision makers etc.

Furthermore, there are several challenges that impedes successful habitat rehabilitation and the development of ecological-economic models: know-how on habitat rehabilitation techniques, development and integration of biodiversity-friendly practices like beekeeping and agroforestry into habitat rehabilitation programmes, know-how to expand bee colonies, procure sophisticated equipment, more advanced, sustained training in specific fields and concerns of the use of pesticides, introduction of diseases and the collapse of bee colonies around the world. A concerted effort is needed to address all these challenges.

This project has two components:

• Component 1: Develop agroforestry-bee keeping as an ecological/economic model and as a biodiversity-friendly sustainable forest/land management practice to rehabilitate degraded land, protect biodiversity and improve local livelihoods.
• Component 2: Integrate biodiversity-friendly sustainable forest/land management practices as ecological-economic models into policy making and business initiatives by disseminating relevant information and influencing political and economic decision-makers in favour of biodiversity, conservation and poverty alleviation priorities.