Urban Beekeepers and Local Councils in Aotearoa, New Zealand: Honeybees Are Valuable Allies in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Dara Dimitrov
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Dara Dimitrov: Te Piringa – Faculty of Law, The University of Waikato, New Zealand

Urban Planning, 2025, vol. 10

Abstract: Beekeeping is a popular hobby, and urban beekeepers make up the largest number of beekeepers in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The ease of purchasing beehives, together with New Zealanders’ positive attitude toward honeybees, has meant that hobbyist beekeeper numbers have steadily increased since 2012. The impact of the increasing numbers of urban beehives has meant Aotearoa, New Zealand’s local councils have been forced to deal with honeybees and, ultimately, with urban beekeepers. This has, in some instances, led to nonsensical bylaws that the urban beekeepers have largely ignored. However, this article will demonstrate that local councils and, by inference, urban planners should take an alternative approach to urban beekeeping only because urban beekeeping leads to better sustainability outcomes. This article will show how urban beehives and beekeeping link well to the Sustainable Development Goals and provide local councils and urban planners with justifications to engage with urban beekeepers. Finally, this article states that local councils should stop treating honeybees as farm livestock and instead treat them as valuable pollinators and the indicator species that they are.

Keywords: beekeeping and SDGs; councils and honeybees; honeybees and SDGs; urban beekeeping; urban planners and honeybees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:urbpla:v10:y:2025:a:9166

DOI: 10.17645/up.9166

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