African Wildlife & Environment Issue 81

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

This sounds all well-and-good – but, I hear you asking: “What about all the defoliation and damage to crops that are either growing because of local irrigation, or where the flitters have settled in adjacent, wetter areas?” Undeniably, in our modern world where we have over-populated the arid lands through our technological capabilities and inventions, locusts can be and are indeed an occasional 'problem'. But by poisoning them (and the quantities of chemicals used historically were massive - and what ecosystem services this has impacted is unknown) we are breaking that essential biogeochemical recycling role they play. Thus, long-term we are depleting the pedoderm in these dry lands of their natural nutrient re-cycling mechanism - LOCUSTS. If we are truly People Caring for the Earth , and also concerned with human welfare, would it not be better to at least consider alternatives to the long-term killing and poisoning of an insect that is actually beneficial? What if we simply accepted that from time-to-time locust swarms will defoliolate the rangelands and damage crops (crops we have planted in or adjacent to their habitat). Here in South Africa why do we not simply compensate farmers for their loss of production? After all, 'plague' proportions of locusts are not a common occurrence. So ready yourselves WESSA members, to fight for the rights of locusts as critically important key biogeochemical recycling agents – not PESTS but Nature’s BLESSING! Here are just a couple of recent references that caught my attention: 1.Desert locusts: New risks in the light of climate change (by Meynard et al. 2017 in the journal Global Change Biology ). Here the authors, typical of modern humans (=dislocated from Nature), inform us “Desert locusts ( Schistocerca gregaria ) are a major pest on numerous crops and pastures throughout a vast area of almost 30 million km2 covering Africa north of the equator, the Near East, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent. Like other locusts, desert locusts can switch from a solitary phase with low population densities during recessions (periods of calm), to a gregarious phase with high population densities during invasions, when hopper bands and swarms can devastate agriculture. “The importance of the pest has necessitated the implementation of a prevention strategy led by numerous national surveillance and control centres

in affected countries. In a global level, those centres are coordinated by the FAO in Rome, which has an information service in charge of monitoring the situation throughout the insect's distribution area and forecasting the risks of outbreaks and invasions.This early warning and prevention system has succeeded in reducing the extent of invasions in most agricultural areas.” 2. FromWikipedia, the free encyclopaedia “The desert locust ( Schistocerca gregaria ) is a species of locust. Plagues of desert locusts have threatened agricultural production in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia for centuries. The livelihood of at least one-tenth of the world’s human population can be affected by this voracious insect. “The desert locust is potentially the most dangerous of the locust pests because of the ability of swarms to fly rapidly across great distances. It has two to five generations per year.The last major desert locust upsurge in 2004–05 caused significant crop losses in West Africa and had a negative impact on food security in the region. While the desert locust alone is not responsible for famines, it can be an important contributing factor.” Then there are references such as: The desert locusts are back in Mali and Niger. The FAO warned the two countries of new plagues during the summer of 2012. This curse of the rains threatens their crops and their food security. From: ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2012). Overgrazed Grasslands Tied to Locust Outbreaks. Also, from ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) - While residents of the United States and much of Europe think of locust plagues as biblical references, locust swarms still have devastating effects on agriculture today, especially in developing countries in Asia and Africa. These references make mention of the fact that locusts are a problem when it rains and pastures are overgrazed . Rain in the desert is rare but overgrazing is common place!

Prof Eugene Moll Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology

University of the Western Cape eugenemoll74@gmail.com

31 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 81 (2022)