Pollinating Insects for Sustainable Livelihoods in the Peruvian Amazon

Interdisciplinary NERC-funded project exploring the role of stingless bees and other insects for coffee pollination in Peru.

The interdisciplinary project "Exploring the role of pollinating insects for sustainable livelihoods in the Peruvian Amazon" is funded by a NERC Global Partnerships Seedcorn Fund grant. It investigates the role of stingless bees and other insects for the pollination of coffee in Peru, and how agricultural landscapes can be managed to support diverse pollinator communities in the context of climate change. The project is led by Dr Katherine Baldock, from Northumbria’s Environment, Conservation and Society (ECoS) research group, with Prof Katy Jenkins from the Centre for Global Development leading the social sciences component of the research (see full list of research team members below).

The team is currently undertaking research in the community of Zarumilla in the Amazonas department of Peru. The project is using an interdisciplinary approach to assess the role of pollinators for coffee production, a crop of significant economic value which is highly vulnerable to climate change. This proof-of-concept study will develop methods that can later be extended to other commercially important crops grown in the Peruvian Amazon.

The project is a collaboration between Northumbria University, Amazon Research Internacional, and Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana. The partnership integrates expertise across disciplines, including pollination and network ecology, palynology, and sustainable development, alongside mobilising existing community knowledge. As the project progresses, the team will share knowledge among partners through workshops, capacity building activities, and data collection and analysis.

To find out more, please contact the project’s Principal Investigator (PI) Dr Katherine Baldock.

Research team: