Rosa Vásquez Espinoza spent years studying one of the oldest bee species on Earth, and her stingless bee research helped win legal recognition for that bee in Peru. It now anchors a regional conservation plan.
Vásquez Espinoza is one of five laureates named for the Rolex Awards in 2026, and all five are women. The award was originally called the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. It launched in 1976 to mark 50 years of the Oyster, the first waterproof wristwatch made by Rolex. This year marks the programme’s 50th anniversary.
The award sits within the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. It recognises individuals, known as Laureates, whose pioneering projects can create significant positive impact for people and the environment. Vásquez Espinoza’s project focuses on habitats and species.
From the Andes to the rainforest
Vásquez Espinoza grew up moving between the Peruvian Andes, the Amazon rainforest and the capital, Lima. She is now the founder and executive director of Amazon Research Internacional. The organisation works to safeguard biodiversity and to empower communities across the Amazon basin.
In an interview with Wallpaper*, she said those journeys taught her that nature is never just a backdrop. She learned about the land from her grandmother and later from Indigenous leaders. Her scientific training, she said, lets her examine nature at a molecular level, far beyond what the eye can see.
Her current stingless bee research sits between those two ways of knowing. She wants to understand how a whole system functions and what would be lost, culturally and ecologically, if a species disappeared. “There are many ways to know a landscape,” she told the magazine.
Stingless bee research is one part of a wider story about Amazon wildlife, where habitat and care for animals shape the outcome. Casa del Loro’s rescued birds in Yucatecan jungle offers a gentle look at that same connection between people and forest life.
Why the bees needed their own protection
Stingless bees have long been prized for their honey. Their populations have been falling because of deforestation, climate change, pesticide use and habitat degradation. Vásquez Espinoza began focusing on the bees in 2020.
Her stingless bee research at Amazon Research Internacional established the first scientific link between the bees’ decline and deforestation. That finding gave the work its urgency and its direction.
Traditional knowledge holds that the honey treats ulcers, inflammation, burns, eye cataracts and even infertility. Chemical studies have identified a range of promising bioactive molecules in it. Vásquez Espinoza described the honey as a concentrated version of the forest around the hives, shaped by the flowers the bees visit.
The Amazon has a long history of extraction, with many of its resources serving markets elsewhere and giving little back to the land and its people. Vásquez Espinoza said conservation cannot last without a sustainable economy. Indigenous communities wanted circular economies that respect traditional knowledge and protect both bees and rainforest. That goal shaped the bee-focused strategy.
Stingless bee research and a growing movement
Her stingless bee research contributed to a landmark legal case in Peru that recognised the legal rights of stingless bees. The case has also supported their protection. Vásquez Espinoza once called the idea a naive and stubborn one, and she said it took bridges between groups that rarely work together.
Those groups included Indigenous communities, scientists, lawyers, storytellers, the press and local authorities. Her argument rests on Indigenous perspectives that see stingless bees as ancestors, teachers and pollinators with a right to live in healthy forests. “If the Amazon is healthy, so are we,” she said.
The effort has grown into a global Bee Rights movement, which Vásquez Espinoza will lead. Several countries have shown interest in copying her framework to protect and restore their own wild bees.
A corridor across four countries
Her next goal is an Indigenous-led Stingless Bee Conservation Corridor spanning Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Brazil. She describes it as the first stingless bee corridor in the world. It would link rainforest, wild bee nests, community-run sanctuaries and Indigenous knowledge, turning stingless bee research into shared practice.
Success, she said, would mean healthy bee populations restoring Amazon bee habitats. It would also mean communities strengthening their livelihoods, training younger people and running monitoring of the corridor themselves.
The obstacles are fragmentation, deforestation and climate change. Local conditions also differ from place to place. The project therefore begins community by community, with a shared vision that each community can shape.
Longer-term funding changes how that work runs. “It allows us to work according to ecological time rather than grant time,” Vásquez Espinoza said. Forests do not recover within a reporting cycle, and meaningful monitoring takes years. She wants the work to produce infrastructure that outlasts any single person or award.
Forests need time to recover, and ocean ecosystems face similar pressures from shifting conditions. Ocean Photography Awards 2026 showing resilient marine life offers a visual look at how wildlife endures when its environment changes.
Other laureates in 2026
The four other women in this year’s group are also laureates.
Rachel Ikemeh, who visited the Niger Delta and found a forest floor knee-deep in crude oil, is one of this year’s laureates.
For Vásquez Espinoza, the award matters most for its timeline. Her bees, and the forests they pollinate, will need decades of patient work. The question is whether the legal and community structures she is building can carry that work forward.
H/T wallpaper.com
Frequently asked questions
Who is Rosa Vásquez Espinoza and what does she do?
Rosa Vásquez Espinoza is the founder and executive director of Amazon Research Internacional, an organisation that works to safeguard biodiversity and empower communities across the Amazon basin. She is one of five Rolex Awards laureates named in 2026.
Why have stingless bee populations been falling?
Stingless bee populations have been falling because of deforestation, climate change, pesticide use and habitat degradation. Vásquez Espinoza’s research established the first scientific link between the bees’ decline and deforestation.
What legal rights did stingless bees gain in Peru?
Vásquez Espinoza’s stingless bee research contributed to a landmark legal case in Peru that recognised the legal rights of stingless bees. The case has also supported their protection.
What is the Stingless Bee Conservation Corridor?
It is an Indigenous-led corridor spanning Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Brazil, which Vásquez Espinoza describes as the first stingless bee corridor in the world. It would link rainforest, wild bee nests, community-run sanctuaries and Indigenous knowledge.
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