
Locust plague in Kenya!

The East African country of Kenya struggled with the worst locust plague in decades in January. A huge swarm of the voracious insects is destroying valuable land and endangering the region's food supply.
The most important thing about the locust plague in brief:
- Plague in Kenya
- Climatic Interactions: What Australia Has to Do With It
- What solutions are there?
Plagues of locusts are not uncommon in Africa. Due to the strong change in climate, with periods of drought followed by heavy rainfall, the spread of the insects was encouraged. This year, however, the number and size of the animals has reached apocalyptic proportions. The swarm that is eating into Kenya's agriculture stretches over the equivalent of 2,400 square kilometers (!). This corresponds approximately to the size of Saarland and Vorarlberg.
The United Nations has already issued an official warning that the current plague is a cause of grave concern for the region's food supply.
The locusts migrate to Kenya from the neighboring countries of Somalia and Ethiopia and find ideal feeding conditions in the agriculture there.
The size listed above is also reflected in their destruction potential; just a single square kilometer of the swarm can destroy as much food as 35,000 people in one day.
How is Australia related to Kenya?
The locust plague in Kenya shows once again that climate catastrophes and their causes are not limited to small patches of our planet, but usually have global effects.
The bushfires in Australia have attracted immense media attention in recent weeks; in addition to countless animal deaths, the bushfires have also destroyed huge areas of land.
A major factor in the bushfires in Australia was the so-called Indian Ocean Dipole. This anomaly changes the sea surface temperature and causes various climatic extremes in the affected areas. An important interaction is that this results in very low rainfall in Australia and Indonesia, which increases the likelihood of drought (leading to enormous bushfires), while in equatorial Africa it leads to increased rainfall, which results in favorable breeding conditions for locusts leads.
Excessive rain in the region led to massive flooding in Africa, affecting 3.4 million people.
The locust plague is hitting the region particularly hard, as food shortages are already a permanent problem in East Africa.
According to the UN Emergency Relief Office, around 25.5 million people are at risk of starvation. Politically, famine and plagues lead to enormous tensions in the crisis-torn areas, which repeatedly culminate in armed conflicts. (see Somalia and the Al-Shabaab militia).
Locust plague solutions?
The solution to locust plagues is always controversial, as they can only be destroyed through intensive use of pesticides.
However, it is also known that the use of the pesticide is very dangerous to the environment, as it not only affects the swarms of locusts, but also all other animals and plants. However, the authorities may have no choice, as with the current extent of the disaster, up to 100% crop loss in the affected regions can be expected.
In summary, it shows the enormous destructive power that global climate and weather phenomena can achieve.
While Australia is affected by the worst bushfires in decades, the excess water in other regions is leading to floods on the one hand and severe locust plagues that thrive in wetlands on the other. But the crises show one thing above all, namely that the international community must work together more strongly and, above all, more efficiently in cases of crisis in order to prevent humane disasters.
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Author: Alexander Herberstein, article image locust plague: From ch123 / Shutterstock.com
Notes:
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The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual articles (not fact checks) were created using machine help and
were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )
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