The Year of the Locust - The Mail & Guardian

  • 📰 mailandguardian
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 56 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 26%
  • Publisher: 92%

South Africa Headlines News

South Africa Latest News,South Africa Headlines

About 25 years ago, Baldwyn Torto and his team taught themselves to talk to locusts. Now, Simon Allison brings you the story of the swarms eating their way across Africa.

In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battleThe Empty Quarter does not get a lot of water.

Half of Cressman’s job is science. From his office in Rome, he speaks to national-level locust monitoring units in two dozen frontline countries in North Africa, the Sahara Desert, the Arabian Peninsula and Southwest Asia. Each country is responsible for monitoring their desert areas, looking for any unexpected vegetation or unusually wet conditions that might encourage locusts to breed.

In early 2019, over the course of several months, the winds carried the bulk of the desert locust swarms south into Yemen, where they found new vegetation and more good rain. Some locusts were carried north, into Iran, and from there into Pakistan. Cyclone Pawan made landfall in the Horn of Africa on December 7 2019, in almost exactly the same area as the locust swarms. Pawan was not an especially strong cyclone, but the unseasonal rain it dumped on the region’s arid landscape was enough to allow for two new generations of breeding, creating the most severe plague of locusts since 1986.Their eyes humbled, they will emerge from the graves as if they were locusts spreading, racing ahead toward the Caller.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 2. in ZA

South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

67-year-old man starts university 50 years after finishing high schoolAs classes start this week at Rhodes University, Michael Willemse is hoping to begin his BA degree with anthropology and politics as his majors.
Source: TimesLIVE - 🏆 28. / 59 Read more »

67-year-old man starts university 50 years after finishing high schoolAs classes start this week at Rhodes University, Michael Willemse is hoping to begin his BA degree with anthropology and politics as his majors. this is remarkable
Source: SowetanLIVE - 🏆 13. / 63 Read more »

Woolworths cuts interim dividend for third yearThe group says poor performance, load-shedding and low economic growth affected performance in the first half of 2020 Yet the former CEO only a couple of weeks ago received a handsome pay out. Who is looking after the shareholders interests? CoruscaKhaya Expensive nonsense
Source: BDliveSA - 🏆 12. / 63 Read more »

Sarah Langa's 2020 prayer: God save me from toxic people this year!'I pray that the almighty Allah/ God saves me from toxic people this year.' Shouldn’t she be asking God/Allah to save toxic people rather? 😂 Is she Muslim?
Source: TimesLIVE - 🏆 28. / 59 Read more »

Eight-year-old Tazne van Wyk's body found after cops interview suspect“Further interviewing of the suspect by detectives led to the gruesome discovery of the body of the child in a storm water pipe outside Worcester”
Source: SowetanLIVE - 🏆 13. / 63 Read more »

SA farmers set for a good yearYes...we will start by stealing their land If only we can share the land 😳 we can also assist to boost the economy as the majority in poverty.
Source: TheCitizen_News - 🏆 6. / 75 Read more »