We grew up seeing agriculture, meliponiculture and beekeeping as family inheritances. However, throughout our education, we encountered a deep disconnection as youth were migrating. Faced with this reality, we felt a shared urgency to organise and build a future in which it is not necessary to leave our Maya territory in order to survive. A future where organised youth can promote alternatives rooted in the care for native bees, traditional food systems, biodiversity and the ecosystems that sustain life in our communities.
Our communities in the Maya region of Quintana Roo, immersed in the Mexican forest, face daily challenges stemming from extractivist economic dynamics and the dominant capitalist model. In this context, we constantly see relatives, friends, and people close to us migrate in search of ‘better opportunities’. In this process, roots, language, culture and identity are often left behind.
This is how our journey began. We were a group of agroecology students (seven women and two men) at the Intercultural Maya University of Quintana Roo (Mexico), originally from Maya communities. Our paths were not yet fully defined, but we were united by a shared purpose: to remain in our territory.
Obsession
Our first collective learning experience was with the learning and practice community Youth for Agroecology and Commercialisation (CAJAC), which was promoted by the Community Agroecology Network (CAN) and the University El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR). This space aimed to weave support networks among young people interested in strengthening agroecological and community processes.
In that exchange, our initial ‘obsession’ was native seeds from the Maya milpa. However, we soon realised that our efforts needed to go further. We decided to commit to an integrated model that brings together agriculture, beekeeping and meliponiculture. We understood agroecology not only as a technique or a productive model, but as a way of life. For us, agroecology is a tool that combines traditional knowledge with innovative practices and allows us to address current challenges through the defence of our territory – our home.
We came to understand that in Maya culture, life is not organised into isolated sectors. Everything is connected
This understanding did not come from books. It emerged from experience: from observing our grandparents working in their plots, home gardens and backyards. This is how we came to understand that in Maya culture, life is not organised into isolated sectors. Everything is connected. It is this memory that drives us every day to continue committing to an integrated model based on the traditional food systems that have historically sustained our communities. And that is why we started to work with native bees.
Our most demanding teachers: the bees
Integrating native bees into our daily lives was not simply about adding a productive activity. Working with the Xunaan kaab (a stingless melipona bee) and other native bees transformed our rhythms of work and our way of observing the territory.
In the Maya region, meliponiculture involves a deep exercise of observation and reflection. Bees teach us that a collective, like a hive, is made up of individuals with different roles, but oriented towards the common good. In the hive, individualism does not exist: if one part fails, the whole system weakens.
As a group of young people, we have differences and disagreements. Today we understand that these are not obstacles, but opportunities to pause, listen and engage in dialogue. It is in this meeting of perspectives that more complete and resilient viewpoints emerge, strengthening our collective path.
Learning to self-manage
Since we began this collective journey in 2019, we have accumulated many lessons. One of the most difficult – but also one of the most important – was recognising the need for collective self-management and the value of youth voices in decision making.
We learned to move from dependence on other organisations towards building real autonomy, where our voices carry weight and we can chart our own path. Self-management means taking on responsibilities, making mistakes and learning from them. But it also means strengthening ourselves as a collective.
This search for autonomy has never involved walking alone. Our process has been deeply intergenerational, engaging grandparents, mothers and fathers – holders of invaluable knowledge. Although we brought a technical perspective from academics, these teachers also reminded us what it means to interact with the forest: to understand and respect its cycles, and to recognise that technology loses its meaning when separated from traditional knowledge.
Looking inside the colony: Seeing our own roles
The integration of these forms of knowledge with the defence of our autonomy is not something that remains on paper. These are realities we ourselves experience every day and that form part of our collective memory, built through crises, learning processes and achievements. This process, however, has not been easy.
Our role within this ‘colony’ also requires looking inward. It means recognising from where each of us defends life and reflecting on how these lessons are lived in everyday, intimate ways.
One of us, Flor, is a Maya woman who grew up observing that the cycles of the land, collective work, the milpa and beekeeping are not theory – they are identity, an extension of our cultural being. As Flor reflects, we have faced difficulties in decision making, particularly due to the challenge of organising ourselves horizontally; when choosing the next step in an activity, we often did not know which direction to take, and the diversity of opinions within the collective extended the time needed to reach agreements. Unexpected divisions in the group also arose, testing our resilience as a collective.
Overcoming these moments was key to reaffirming our commitment and understanding that defending the territory requires a strong unity – one capable of going through the fire of conflict.
For Juan, who is passionate about native bees, meliponiculture represents much more than a model for honey production: it is a way of life and a tool for ecological resistance. Integrating bees was a natural step, since one cannot speak of the milpa without also speaking of its pollinators.Observing them compels us to reflect on the need to conserve and restore ecosystems—not only to produce, but to return to future generations a part of what has been entrusted to us. As Juan says: “The land does not belong to us, but to our children.”
Caring for life also means caring for collective memory
For Wendy, a beekeeper, her relationship with the land and the care of bees began at a very early age, guided by the hands and words of her parents and grandparents. From them she learned that every seed, every insect and every tree has a place and a purpose, and that caring for life also means caring for collective memory. Without that guidance, she recognises, she would not have acquired the ancestral knowledge that now sustains her path.
Wendy is convinced that youth are not only the future, but the living present of agroecological and cultural processes rooted in the territory. It is youth, she affirms, who can sow hope, defend identity and care for life, so that roots continue to flourish over time.
A call to action
This awareness of being heirs to a living memory, and of carrying responsibility for the future, is what prevents us from standing still. We understand that defending the territory requires more than good intentions. It demands youth who move beyond being passive beneficiaries to become active leaders with decision-making power.
Today, we are putting this conviction into practice in Maya communities in the state of Quintana Roo, where we build our own model of integral training and offer free community workshops to engage youth in activities that strengthen their connection to the territory – from agroecology and the care of native bees, to visual communication tools such as photography and video – with the aim of sharing and multiplying our tools.
We therefore conclude with the following message:
To young people we say: do not wait for permission. Too often, youth participation is reduced to a photo or a simulation that allows others to say “we listened to young people”, but that ultimately ends in meeting minutes and reports that are never followed up on. Do not accept that role. Let us build our own spaces for decision making. We have the capacity to create real solutions, from and for our communities.
Authors: Wendy Guadalupe Ek Uc (24) is a beekeeper and farmer from José María Morelos, Quintana Roo. She facilitates agroecological processes with youth in her community. Eliezer May Pat (24) is from Yaxley, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo. He is an agroecological production systems engineer dedicated to milpa farming, beekeeping and native seed conservation. Flor Isabel Nahuatz Díaz (27) is from the community of Señor, Quintana Roo. She is an agroecological production systems engineer who works in her family’s milpa and on seed conservation and the recovery of medicinal plants. Juan Carlos Mayo Velázquez (24) is an agroecologist and meliponiculturist from Quintana Roo. He works on the conservation of native bees and on articulating traditional knowledge with agroecology in the Maya region. Contact: jovenesdelazonamaya@gmail.com
This article is part of Issue 4-2026: Youth leading the way in agroecology.
