Managing drought and locust invasions in Africa

Abstract

The two most critical African natural disasters, drought and locust outbreaks, are least understood in terms of the four activities considered essential to long-term disaster reduction: hazard prediction, risk assessment, disaster preparedness and disaster management. In finding a solution to the drought and desertification that plague Africa's Sudano-Sahelian belt, planners would do well to study indigenous adaptations to the unpredictable Sahelian ecosystem. The key to solving the problem of locust swarms may lie in the work being done by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) which hopes to find a way to dampen the locusts' swarming cycle and intensify their solitary cycle so that locust populations can maintain a relatively sedentary, grasshopper-like lifestyle.