Beekeeping in the Amazon: Rural development, conservation, and participation in Rondonia, Brazil

Attempts to arrest deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon include new rural development policies. One of these policies, a socially and ecologically progressive approach, is called productive conservation. Ideally, productive conservation leads to economic development among the rural poor with conservation of rain forest ecosystems. Moreover, productive conservation requires and benefits from community participation. This dissertation critically evaluates the elements of development, conservation, and participation in a productive conservation project involving the promotion of beekeeping among colonist farmers in the state of Rondonia, Brazil.;This study employs a political ecology framework, analyzing data on the socioeconomic, political, and ecological factors at work in beekeeping. The data comes from primary and secondary source material and participant observation with a grassroots organization of colonist farmers.;This research suggests that the various actors in productive conservation have promoted beekeeping without sufficient critical analysis of basic ecological or political economic issues. These issues, though, are the ones that ultimately determine whether the practice contributes toward the ideals of productive conservation. Beekeeping can generate significant increases in household income. However, the grassroots organization that processes and markets honey for farmers has become over-dependent on donor funds. Once the flow of productive conservation donor funds stops, the organization may fail, making it too difficult for beekeepers to maintain their operations.;Beekeeping does not lead directly toward rain forest conservation. Beekeeping projects almost exclusively involve the use of introduced Africanized "killer" bees, commercially exploitable in the Amazon only because deforestation has temporarily created suitable habitats for them. Productive conservation projects have neglected the potential use of native, "stingless" bees, known and used by indigenous peoples for thousands of years throughout the tropical Americas.;Finally, beekeeping does not necessarily involve the genuine participation of local people. The grassroots organization leadership in the case study restricts the size and input of its membership to maintain its command of a line of patronage using productive conservation donor money. The final chapter gives concrete recommendations to direct beekeeping toward accomplishing the goals of productive conservation.