OPINION (THE NATIONAL) – The first five weeks of 2020 have been a tumultuous time for the wider Middle East. Adding to the long list of the region’s woes is a new threat that has its origins as much in the natural world as the political one. A plague of locusts unlike any seen for decades is jeopardizing the bulk of agricultural output of more than a dozen nations spanning from Egypt to India.
Although there has been a flurry of press coverage and pleas for assistance from the nations involved, still not enough attention has been devoted to addressing the issue. Billions of desert locusts have woken from their placid state and flown across two continents, posing a threat so grave as to push two of the countries affected – Pakistan and Somalia – to declare states of emergency. The numbers involved, the UN has warned, are “unprecedented”.
If they are not contained, their appetites will trigger famine, destroy livelihoods for local farmers and undermine the food security of a group of countries with a combined population of nearly 2 billion. Most worryingly, this year’s iteration of the locust plague – a phenomenon that has occurred periodically in the history of the Middle East – is not strictly a product of nature. It is also widely suspected to be a consequence of climate change, the responsibility for which lies in large part with human civilization. READ MORE
