Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Monday 10 February 2020
"Where it begins": Young hungry locusts bulk up in Somalia

By JOSPHAT KASIRE Other East African coun-
and BEN CURTIS tries including South Sudan,
Associated Press Eritrea and Djibouti are also
GAROWE, Somalia (AP) at risk, Burgeon said. Millions
— At a glance, the desert of people in some of these
locusts in this arid patch of places are already facing
northern Somalia look less hunger in the wake of civil
ominous than the billion- war or more common chal-
member swarms infesting lenges such as poverty.
East Africa in the worst out- Locusts began to arrive
break some places have Sunday in Uganda, reach-
seen in 70 years. ing a village near the Ke-
But their time will come. nyan border, according to
Small and wingless, the Martin Owor, the country's
hopping young locusts are commissioner in charge of
the next wave in the out- disaster preparedness.
break that threatens more The swarm spotted in Amu-
than 10 million people dat district was "certainly
across the region with a se- big," and the prime minister
vere hunger crisis. was expected to lead an
And they are growing up evening emergency meet-
in one of the most inacces- ing on Uganda's first major
sible places on the planet. locust outbreak since the
Large parts of Somalia 1960s, Owor said.
south of this semi-auton- Here in rural Somalia, where
omous Puntland region about 50% of the people
are under threat, or held depend on animals for their
by, the al-Qaida-linked al- livelihoods, the locusts are
Shabab extremist group. eating the pasturage. The
That makes it difficult or animals weaken, their milk
impossible to conduct the In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020, a young desert locust that has not yet grown wings decreases and small chil-
aerial spraying of the lo- is stuck in a spider's web on a thorny bush in the desert near Garowe, in the semi-autonomous dren, who depend on the
custs that experts say is the Puntland region of Somalia. milk to survive, suffer sky-
only effective control. Associated Press rocketing malnutrition, the
Somalia has declared the three or four weeks, these grow by up to 500 times by likelihood of further locust experts said.
outbreak a national emer- nymphs, as we call them, June, when drier weather is outbreaks grows. Those fighting the locust
gency. Across the region, it will develop wings." expected. The "sort of new normal," outbreak may try to nego-
has the potential "to be the Then they are expected to But that drier weather is Burgeon said. tiate with Somalia's extrem-
most devastating plague set off for neighboring Ke- not necessarily the solution, And that means Kenya, ist fighters to allow spraying
of locusts in any of our liv- nya and Ethiopia, where a said Dominique Burgeon, Ethiopia and other East Af- in rural areas where they
ing memories if we don't handful of planes spraying the FAO's emergency and rican countries that rarely are active, Burgeon said.
reduce the problem faster pesticide can only do so resilience director. see such outbreaks and Already emergency work-
than we're doing at the much if such swarms keep The density of the locusts found themselves largely ers are going in where they
moment," U.N. humanitar- arriving. is now so high that even unprepared for this one can.
ian chief Mark Lowcock Climate experts have normal moisture can lead could join "frontline coun- In a few weeks the young
said. pointed to unusually heavy to another generation, he tries" in parts of West Africa locusts will shed their skin,
As an armed Somali po- rains, aided by a powerful said. and the Middle East, ex- said Keith Cressman, a se-
liceman stood by, experts cyclone off Somalia in De- "We cannot believe in perts say. Those countries nior locust forecasting offi-
on Thursday walked across cember, as a major fac- Mother Nature to solve it," have well-trained monitor- cer with the FAO.
the dry land crawling with tor in the outbreak. The lo- he explained. ing and prevention systems "It takes a few days to warm
the young locusts and ex- custs were carried in by the Without enough spraying in place for more frequent up their wings," he said.
plained the threat to come storm's winds from the Ara- to stop the swarms, the al- locust outbreaks. Some test flights follow and
if the world doesn't act bian Peninsula and parts ready worrying outbreak The FAO has asked inter- they're on the move.
right now. beyond, and now they are could turn into a plague, national donors to give $76 The locusts at that stage
"The world needs to know feeding on Somalia's fresh "and when you have a million immediately to help are bright pink and in their
this is where it all begins," vegetation. plague, it takes years to control this outbreak. So far most voracious state, like
said Alberto Trillo Barca, With more rains expected control," he said. $19 million is in hand, Bur- "very hungry teenagers,"
a spokesman for the U.N. in the region in the com- Against that sweeping out- geon said. Cressman said. By now,
Food and Agriculture Or- ing weeks, the number of look, a few masked workers "The biggest challenge is many people in Kenya and
ganization. "In the next locusts if unchecked could with white protective suits the scale of the breeding, Ethiopia know them well.
and pesticide containers as you can see all around After a month or so, the lo-
strapped to their backs us," Barca said. These lo- custs will be mature adults,
stood in the camel-crossed custs, he said, will be mi- ready to reproduce.
Somali desert, spritzing the grating to southern Soma- Soon after copulating and
thousands of locusts cling- lia and parts of Kenya and laying eggs the locusts will
ing to thorny bushes. Ethiopia just as crops are die, "but their progeny will
The world's changing cli- germinating there. be hatching," Cressman
mate brings the risk of more "If at that time there are said.
cyclones coming in from huge quantities of locusts "And we have another gen-
the warming Indian Ocean around, it will have a dev- eration of locusts to con-
off East Africa, climate ex- astating impact on the tend with, with about an-
perts say. With that, the crops," Burgeon said. other 20-fold increase."q