In this research, we answer the question: what collaboration might look like in a more-than-human world using a globally significant and locally distinctive occurrence - commercial migratory beekeeping in Western Australia (WA). Beekeeping is an agricultural practice that quintessentially embodies mutually beneficial collaboration between humans and non-humans. International studies confirm the historic and practical aspects of keeping honeybees; and those working in the industry emphasise the importance of beekeeper’s local ecological knowledge of environmental markers. However, the nature of the relationship between beekeepers, honeybees, bee forage (resources) and landscape managers is an under examined yet hotly contested domain. Commercial migratory beekeeping in the southwest of WA – a global biodiversity hotspot – offers a rich case study for developing a process-relational analysis of collaboration with the more-than-human world.
Core elements of a more-than-human collaboration were uncovered by analysing the under-appreciated beekeeper agency. These elements include: an appreciation of intricate interdependencies between humans and the more-than-human; the co-evolution of practice and knowledge that is a result of collaboration between beekeepers, honey bees and the broader natural environment all set within the context of a strong beekeeper environmental stewardship ethic. This research challenges traditional stakeholder engagement models to include the more-than-human in practical and policy considerations related to public natural resource management. Our work advances scholarship in the stakeholder engagement aspects of Collaborative Adaptive Management (CAM) (Beratan 2014) by posing a stronger question; how can CAM be enacted through public policy in a way that champions respectful, mutually beneficial relationships with the more-than-human world? We conclude that commercial beekeepers and their collaborative relationships represent both a challenging and promising opportunity to redefine what it means to be an environmental steward in a multi-species post-human age.