Apimondia News

Apimondia announces Open Source License to enable the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Bee Genetic Resources

The Executive Council of Apimondia meeting in Mugla, Turkey in October 31 2016 unanimously voted to adopt the Apimondia Open Source Breeding Material (OSB) license for Apis mellifera and Apis cerana as a first step to implement an open source licensing system throughout the global beekeeping community.

“The contributions of beekeepers in all regions of the world in conserving the genetic resources of the honey bee can now be protected using a public license”, said Philip McCabe, President of Apimondia.

“In Germany, we already have the first organisation of bee breeders, who have made a commitment to base all exchange of breeding material on the new license”, said Walter Haefeker, Coordinator of the Apimondia Working Group. “Apimondia is calling on all beekeeping associations to implement this license to protect their collaborative efforts to maintain healthy bees for the beekeeping community and society as a whole.”

Apimondia is supporting an international collaboration to establish honey bee germplasm repositories using state of the art technologies, which permit storing honey bee semen for a long time and perhaps indefinitely. Given present and future threats to honey bee survival, it is imperative to guarantee the preservation of the various species and races of honey bee that exist worldwide, including both commercial genetic lines and locally adapted wild types.

The license and related documentation are published on Apimondia’s website: http:// www.apimondia.com/documents/ gmo/apimondia_open_source_ breeding_material_license.pdf

The Apimondia license will be used to ensure free and open access to the genetic resources collected for the scientific and beekeeping community.

Photos © Franc Sivic

Background

In 2015 reports were published about the first genetically modified bees having been created at a University in Germany. In 2016, researchers in Japan announced the production of Knockout Mutants by CRISPR/Cas9 in the European honey bee. Furthermore, documents of the European Union about the regulation of genetically modified insects contain a section on genetically modified honey bees including the concept of insecticide resistant bees.

During the 44th International Apimondia Congress in Daejeon, Korea in 2015, an Apimondia Working Group was tasked with drafting a public license intended to be used by the beekeeping community when exchanging honey bee genetic resources, which does reserve the rights of the community to protect this common good from undue commercial exploitation or bio-piracy.

The beekeepers organised within Apimondia wish to put the scientific community and commercial enterprises on notice that this work has to be considered a creative commons and is the basis of Beekeepers’ Rights.

Beekeepers are asserting the rights use, exchange and participate in decision-making regarding, and in the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of the genetic resources of the honey bee.

Beekeepers consider the genetic resources of the honey bee to be indigenous and the community of beekeepers to have the established right to grant access to them. Any use of honey bee genetic resources for commercial purpose outside the traditional scope of the beekeeping community has to ensure the communities’ prior informed consent, and fair and equitable benefit-sharing.

Beekeepers’ should be treated and promoted as an integral part of the human right to food, in that our future food supply, and its sustainability, depends on such rights (beekeepers’) being firmly established.

The recognition of beekeepers’ rights is a form of promoting the conservation of pollinator genetic resources, of traditional knowledge, and of ensuring current and future food security. The recognition of beekeepers’ rights benefits not only beekeepers, but all of humanity.

Notwithstanding the assertion of rights to the intellectual property inherent in the genetic resources of the honey bee collaboratively created by the beekeeping community, the beekeepers of the world hereby reject the very concept of patents on life and intend to fight vigorously any attempt to patent all or part of the genetic resources of the honey bee.

Bob Malichi

Bob Malichi, who died in 2016, was the well-known Manager of North West Bee Products in Zambia. Bees for Development regarded him as one of the wisest people working in this sector, and it was always marvellous to hear him speak about his work. In this tribute, his colleague Ben Robertson shares some memories of Bob:

Of all the people I worked with in Kabompo, Zambia during 1990 - 2000, Bob Malichi was by a large margin the person with whom I worked most closely. We didn’t socialise much but in our work we were the closest of colleagues. I had enormous respect and affection for him so it might be of interest and feels appropriate to share some recollections of Bob and those times.

Bob Malichi holding a bark hive

Photo © ???

I can pinpoint the exact moment at which Bob and I clicked. It was when Martin Atkinson, the previous manager of North Western Be Products Ltd, came to the end of his contract with the British charity Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) necessitating the appointment of a new manager. There were various strongly held views about this among beekeepers, employees, trading partners, directors and aid agencies. Some were saying that Bob, who was Assistant Manager, should take over and others that I, then Financial Controller also from VSO, should do so. Bob and I therefore felt we should sound out one another’s opinions about this. I recall vividly his characteristic roar of laughter when we realised that each of us thought the other the best candidate and that neither of us wanted the job. From that point on we were on the same wavelength: the reality was that we were both more interested in and committed to the future of beekeepers, their environment and their business than in promotion, status or personal gain. As a result, we were always able to see eye to eye and became close allies in the workplace.

In the decade that followed I got to know Bob well. He was down to earth and didn’t bother with the airs and grace that many people, quite wrongly, believe managers should have. What he did have, alongside an improbable but great fear of bees, was an abundance of many qualities that make a good manager: he was intelligent, hardworking, insightful, diplomatic, articulate and honest. Of course, he was a human being and, as we all do, had his imperfections too but there was something special about Bob and since learning of his death, I have been reflecting about what it was. In fact, I think there were two things: firstly, Bob’s commitment to what he was doing knew no bounds. It was simply inconceivable that he could give up. He was extraordinarily determined, downright stubborn in fact. But there were always reasons for this, none of which had anything to do with pride or self importance, rather he believed passionately in serving the beekeepers, in the importance of beekeeping to the ecosystem, and he genuinely loved what he did.

This brings me to the second remarkable quality Bob had. Whether it came from his faith, his upbringing and/or from within I cannot say, but Bob cared deeply not only about his work but also about people in a much more profound way than most of us do. As a result, he was able to develop extraordinary working relationships with people such as David Wainwright, Kelvin Chikasa, Aggie Chimanda and myself. These relationships were not ones of blind obedience to anyone, but of partnership between individuals with different points of view who could and did frequently clash but who could work together because of shared values and complementary skills. Bob didn’t simply love his job: he loved the people he worked with and many of us came to love him too. There was nothing sentimental or wishy-washy about this: it was strong and good like the unbreakable bond between members of a healthy family. That Bob could exemplify and nurture this quality in the workplace speaks volumes for the kind of person he was.

We shall miss him dearly. David has been good enough to tell me that many such sentiments were expressed at his funeral gathering and that it has been suggested an institute of sustainable beekeeping be established in his name. Whether this is practical or desirable isn’t for me to say but I do know what Bob thought about such issues in the years I worked with him. Over countless long drives to and from Lusaka, the Copperbelt, Solwezi and many other destinations in NW Province he and I spent hundreds of hours exploring one another’s thoughts about such issues. One reason he was so committed to his work was that he believed, as I do, that beekeeping and the beekeepers play a key role in the management and sustainability not simply of North Western Province and its vast tracts of Miombo woodlands but also in the ecosystem which depends on the Zambezi River and its major tributaries such as Kabompo River because so much of its water derives from the relatively high rainfall in the very area where the beekeepers live and work. We both thought these woodlands crucial to the way the river system works, especially during the long dry season, and that beekeepers, being the people who go deepest into the forest and depend on the good health and blossoming of the most common species of trees for their livelihoods, have for generations had, and still have, a uniquely valuable contribution to make in looking after and nurturing the forests.

As populations increase and global warming progresses; careful farsighted management of North Western Province’s precious ecosystem is going to become increasingly important not just to Zambia but to all the countries that depend on the Zambezi river system.

So, may all those who worked with Bob or work in the beekeeping sector or live in North Western Province remember him and long continue the work he did for more than three decades.

I am certain he is enjoying a hero’s welcome from the ancestors and will not be forgotten. Rest in Peace Bob – you’ve earned it.

Ben Robertson, London