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Traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in Kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest
BACKGROUND: Stingless bee honey (SBH) is a natural remedy and therapeutic agent traditionally used by local communities across the (sub-)tropics. Forest SBH represents a prime non-timber forest product (NTFP) with a potential to revitalize indigenous foodways and to generate income in rural areas, y...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10537491/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37770915 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-023-00614-3 |
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author | Héger, Madeleine Noiset, Pierre Nkoba, Kiatoko Vereecken, Nicolas J. |
author_facet | Héger, Madeleine Noiset, Pierre Nkoba, Kiatoko Vereecken, Nicolas J. |
author_sort | Héger, Madeleine |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Stingless bee honey (SBH) is a natural remedy and therapeutic agent traditionally used by local communities across the (sub-)tropics. Forest SBH represents a prime non-timber forest product (NTFP) with a potential to revitalize indigenous foodways and to generate income in rural areas, yet it is also used in a variety of non-food contexts that are poorly documented in sub-Saharan Africa and that collectively represent a significant part of the local traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) passed on across generations. Documenting TEK of local communities in African tropical forests facing global change is a pressing issue to recognize the value of their insights, to evaluate their sustainability, to determine how they contribute to enhancing conservation efforts, and how TEK generally contributes to the well-being of both the natural environment and the communities that rely on it. This is particularly important to achieve in Kenya’s only tropical rainforest at Kakamega where SBH production and non-food uses have evolved and diversified to a remarkable extent. METHODS: We used ethnographic techniques and methods, including semi-structured questionnaires and recorded interviews. We used snowball sampling, a non-probability sampling method where new interviewees were recruited by other respondents, to collectively form a sample consisting of 36 interviewees (including only one woman). RESULTS: Our results indicate that local communities in Kakamega were able to discriminate between six different and scientifically recognized stingless bee species, and they provided detailed accounts on the species-specific non-food uses of these SBH. Collectively, we recorded an array of 26 different non-food uses that are all passed on orally across generations in the Kakamega community. CONCLUSION: Our results uncover the vast and hitherto unexpected diversity of TEK associated with SBH and pave the way for a systematic survey of SBH and their non-food uses across a network of communities in different environments and with different cultural backgrounds in the Afrotropics. This, along with parallel and more in-depth investigations into honey chemistry, will help develop a comprehensive understanding of SBH, offering insights into holistic ecosystem management, resilience and adaptation while in the mid- to long-term promoting cross-cultural exchanges and pathways for the revitalization of cultural practices and traditions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13002-023-00614-3. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10537491 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105374912023-09-29 Traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in Kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest Héger, Madeleine Noiset, Pierre Nkoba, Kiatoko Vereecken, Nicolas J. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed Analysis BACKGROUND: Stingless bee honey (SBH) is a natural remedy and therapeutic agent traditionally used by local communities across the (sub-)tropics. Forest SBH represents a prime non-timber forest product (NTFP) with a potential to revitalize indigenous foodways and to generate income in rural areas, yet it is also used in a variety of non-food contexts that are poorly documented in sub-Saharan Africa and that collectively represent a significant part of the local traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) passed on across generations. Documenting TEK of local communities in African tropical forests facing global change is a pressing issue to recognize the value of their insights, to evaluate their sustainability, to determine how they contribute to enhancing conservation efforts, and how TEK generally contributes to the well-being of both the natural environment and the communities that rely on it. This is particularly important to achieve in Kenya’s only tropical rainforest at Kakamega where SBH production and non-food uses have evolved and diversified to a remarkable extent. METHODS: We used ethnographic techniques and methods, including semi-structured questionnaires and recorded interviews. We used snowball sampling, a non-probability sampling method where new interviewees were recruited by other respondents, to collectively form a sample consisting of 36 interviewees (including only one woman). RESULTS: Our results indicate that local communities in Kakamega were able to discriminate between six different and scientifically recognized stingless bee species, and they provided detailed accounts on the species-specific non-food uses of these SBH. Collectively, we recorded an array of 26 different non-food uses that are all passed on orally across generations in the Kakamega community. CONCLUSION: Our results uncover the vast and hitherto unexpected diversity of TEK associated with SBH and pave the way for a systematic survey of SBH and their non-food uses across a network of communities in different environments and with different cultural backgrounds in the Afrotropics. This, along with parallel and more in-depth investigations into honey chemistry, will help develop a comprehensive understanding of SBH, offering insights into holistic ecosystem management, resilience and adaptation while in the mid- to long-term promoting cross-cultural exchanges and pathways for the revitalization of cultural practices and traditions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13002-023-00614-3. BioMed Central 2023-09-28 /pmc/articles/PMC10537491/ /pubmed/37770915 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-023-00614-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Analysis Héger, Madeleine Noiset, Pierre Nkoba, Kiatoko Vereecken, Nicolas J. Traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in Kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest |
title | Traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in Kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest |
title_full | Traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in Kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest |
title_fullStr | Traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in Kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest |
title_full_unstemmed | Traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in Kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest |
title_short | Traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in Kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest |
title_sort | traditional ecological knowledge and non-food uses of stingless bee honey in kenya’s last pocket of tropical rainforest |
topic | Analysis |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10537491/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37770915 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-023-00614-3 |
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