Chemical biologist and conservationist Rosa Vásquez Espinoza has been named one of five Laureates of this year’s Rolex Awards. Her pioneering work links deforestation in the Amazon with the decline of stingless bees, which not only act as crucial pollinators, but produce honey with incredible medicinal uses and provide an alternative livelihood for local indigenous communities. The Award will allow Vásquez Espinoza to expand an Indigenous-led corridor of protected bee habitats.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, originally launched in 1976 to mark half a century since the release of the first waterproof wristwatch produced by Rolex, the Oyster. Part of the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, the Awards are given to exceptional individuals whose projects improve knowledge of the planet, protect the environment, and help preserve habitats and species. To celebrate 50 years of the programme, it is being revamped under a new name: the Rolex Awards.

Raised between the Peruvian Andes and the rainforest, Vásquez Espinoza brings together ancestral knowledge and cutting-edge science. As founder and Executive Director of Amazon Research Internacional, she works to protect biodiversity and empower communities across the Amazon basin, and her research has recently led to a first-of-its-kind landmark legal case – resulting in the protection of the oldest species of bees on the planet, the stingless bee. “It went absolutely viral,” Vásquez Espinoza says. “This is the first insect in the world to get legal rights, through our work.”

Vásquez Espinoza first studied the Amazon’s stingless bees in 2020 and was stunned to see that the medicinal properties of their honey, long valued by local indigenous communities, could be evidenced chemically. With the bees facing threats from deforestation, habitat degradation, pesticide use and climate change, Amazon Research Internacional established the first scientific link between deforestation and stingless bee decline.

The chemical biologist and her colleagues started knocking on doors to try to understand why nobody had done anything to protect these bees yet. Eventually she discovered from a minister that because there were no protections in the law, the options were limited. “There was a bit of a sinking feeling that this was impossible,” says Vásquez Espinoza. “Then a naïve and stubborn idea – what if we could change that?”

Thanks to the efforts of Vásquez Espinoza and her team and partners, in late 2025, Amazon stingless bees in Peru became the first insects in the world to be granted legal rights, which conservationists hope could set a precedent and help other species elsewhere. The bees, which are a key rainforest pollinator and a major part of life for the Indigenous Asháninka and Kukama-Kukamiria peoples, amongst others, now have the right to exist.

Vásquez Espinoza and her team have to date surveyed 40,000 hectares of rainforest, identifying more than 300 wild hives and 1.6 million stingless bees. They currently work with 11 communities and have trained more than 350 Indigenous people in sustainable beekeeping, entrepreneurship and ecological research; 70 per cent of whom are women.

By merging scientific research with ancestral knowledge, Amazon Research Internacional is leaning on the Indigenous people’s traditions around beekeeping – from stories and mythology to active medicinal practices – and helping them gain validity in scientific circles.

Fieldwork for Vásquez Espinoza can involve nights locating hives and days recording the bees’ data. Some field trips involve staying with local communities, while other more remote locations, which can take several hours of trekking to reach, require camping in the jungle overnight under the guidance of a local beekeeper.

After supporting the regeneration of 17 hectares of rainforest, Amazon Research Internacional is planning to expand its work by launching 10 Indigenous-led stingless bee sanctuaries in biodiversity hotspots. By mapping 200,000 hectares of habitat, Vásquez Espinoza and her team will ultimately create a transboundary Stingless Bee Conservation Corridor extending into Bolivia and along the border between Peru, Colombia and Brazil.

Her Rolex Award will allow Vásquez Espinoza and her team to envision large-scale, longer-term impact beyond the typical cycle of year-long grant and fundraising efforts. “We’ve been able to achieve incredible things and yet that has been our bottleneck,” says Vásquez Espinoza.

She is among the 165 Laureates that the Rolex Awards have supported to date tackling some of the most pressing issues across almost 70 countries.

“Seeing the history of what Rolex has supported in the past and how people have been able to continue scaling that work puts even more fire behind us. This work is extremely hard, but the idea that our work can be thought of on the scale of these other incredible projects gives us reassurance that we are on the right path.”
– Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, 2026 Rolex Awards Laureate

ABOUT THE PERPETUAL PLANET INITIATIVE
Rolex celebrates human achievement, recognizing journeys marked by milestones and emotions that culminate in defining moments.

For nearly a century, Rolex has supported pioneering explorers to help them achieve countless historic feats. Over time, the company has moved from championing exploration for the sake of discovery to protecting the planet. Through the Perpetual Planet Initiative, Rolex stands alongside those building a better future for all life on earth.

The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative was launched in 2019 and now has a portfolio of more than 30 partners, active in three main focus areas: Oceans; Landscapes; and Science, Health, and Technology.

For the Oceans, Rolex supports a wide range of projects such as: Mission Blue and Rolex Testimonee Sylvia Earle; Cristina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen; and Coral Gardeners.

The Landscapes roster includes: a strengthened partnership with the National Geographic Society; Rewilding Argentina and Rewilding Chile, offspring organisations of Tompkins Conservation; and Steve Boyes and the Great Spine of Africa series of expeditions.

Rolex also supports partners in Science, Health, and Technology, such as: Rolex Awards Laureates Andrew Bastawrous; Felix Brooks-church; and Miranda Wang.

Rolex also supports organizations and initiatives fostering the next generation of explorers, scientists and conservationists, such as the Royal Geographical Society, The Explorers Club, the CERN & Society Foundation and the EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Lausanne.