Scientist Connects Tribal Livelihoods to Wild Bee Conservation Across India

Gopal Paliwal, director of the Centre for Bee Development, has spent more than three decades promoting non-destructive honey harvesting among tribal and forest-dwelling communities across central and eastern India. His work links the protection of wild bee species such as Apis dorsata to sustainable forest-based livelihoods, addressing habitat loss and climate-driven pollinator decline.

Paliwal has worked across Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh to train community members in safe honey harvesting techniques that do not destroy bee colonies or nests. His focus on wild species, particularly the giant honeybee Apis dorsata, highlights a category of pollinator that remains far less recognised in conservation and agricultural policy than domesticated bees. The Apis dorsata plays a critical role in forest regeneration and crop pollination across tribal belt landscapes.

Wild bee populations in India face converging threats from pesticide use, deforestation and shifting climate patterns that alter flowering seasons and forage availability. Paliwal argues that effective conservation must go beyond scientific study to integrate traditional community knowledge and connect producers to sustainable commercial markets. His approach demonstrates that protecting wild pollinators and improving forest community incomes are not competing objectives but reinforcing ones.

On World Bee Day 2026, Paliwal was travelling to the Konkan region for a training programme on honey collection and value-chain development, underscoring the continuous field engagement his model requires. Wider adoption of community-based wild bee conservation could strengthen India's pollination services, which underpin both food security and forest biodiversity. Policy recognition of non-timber forest products such as wild honey could provide a stronger institutional framework for scaling his work.

Key figure — Over 30 years of field work across 7 Indian states