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At dawn in Gujarat’s Banni grasslands, the earth smells faintly of salt and wet dung. Buffaloes shuffle through silver grass under a pale orange sky while tiny black bees hover over flowering shrubs that survived the harsh summer. Herders of the Maldhari community move slowly with their animals, reading the land like memory: where water remained after winter, where grasses flowered early, where acacia trees are likely to bloom.

Hundreds of kilometres away in Rajasthan’s Thar desert, Raika camel herders walk across sandy commons dotted with khejri and ber shrubs. Their camels browse lightly, never staying too long in one place. After the first monsoon showers, wild flowers erupt briefly across the desert floor, drawing bees in clouds of gold and brown.

These scenes rarely enter conversations about conservation. Yet across India, pastoralist communities are the country’s quietest custodians of wild pollinators.

On World Bee Day, observed on May 20 every year, discussions usually focus on honey production, commercial beekeeping or pesticide-driven bee decline. But scientists and grassroots organisations are increasingly recognising another reality: in addition to forest and farms, wild bees wild bees also depends on living pastoral landscapes; grasslands, grazing commons, scrub forests and migratory routes maintained by herding communities for centuries.

India hosts more than...

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