Spain sends planes to fight locust swarms

Spain has sent nine planes to Morocco to combat a plague of locusts that is sweeping the southern Maghreb and threatens to head for Europe. Clouds of desert locusts have darkened Moroccan skies for months in the worst such plague since 1986.

Spain has sent nine planes to Morocco to combat a plague of locusts that is sweeping the southern Maghreb and threatens to head for Europe. Clouds of desert locusts have darkened Moroccan skies for months in the worst such plague since 1986.

Light aircraft sent by the Spanish foreign ministry are combating the creatures with insecticide, spraying hundreds of thousands of hectares from the Atlantic coastline to the Algerian border.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warns that if the plague is not stopped, the locusts - which can measure up to 15cm -could devastate crops throughout southern Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. With a favourable wind, they could reach Europe where they would be more difficult to control, the FAO says.

Desert locusts, or Shistocerca gregaria, travel in swarms millions strong and devour any vegetation in their path. The creatures' usual habitat is the Sahara, and they move between north and south according to the season.

But if the wind changes, they can head north across the Mediterranean. In 1956, locusts reached Extremadura in south-western Spain and in 1987 they descended upon Rome.

"The locust doesn't usually cross the Atlas mountains," said Jose Ruiz, one of three Spanish pilots whose 502AT aircraft are based at Er Rachidia in the heart of Morocco's southern desert. Two planes operate from Er Rachidia to spray Malation insecticide on the ravenous hordes.

Other planes are based in Bouarfa to the east, and Ouarzazate to the west. The aircraft are supplied by five Spanish companies in an operation costing €2m (£1.3m).

Every morning, Moroccan experts give the Spanish pilots the co-ordinates of the area to be fumigated, and locals mark the zone with flaming tyres or flags. The terrain south of the Atlas range is mostly stony desert, but north of the mountains the land is cultivated, making fumigation a more difficult operation.

Spain mounted the aid project as a matter of urgency, said Juan Peña, Spain's aid and co-operation organiser in Morocco. "It's in the interests of both our countries to stop the locusts crossing the Gibraltar Strait," Mr Peña said.

"It's much easier to control the plague in the desert than in Spain." He recalled his experience of the last plague, between 1984 and 1987. "If you get caught up in a cloud of locusts you have to stop the car because they blot out the sun," he said yesterday.

The director of the FAO's locust group, Clive Elliott, cannot put an exact figure on the number of locusts but he believes that there are millions. Last year was a particularly good year for them, he says.

The locust lays its eggs in the southern Sahara in the summer, which, last year, was particularly rainy in the region, so that most of the eggs buried in the ground hatched. Through the summer, the new-born locusts begin their journey north, pushed by prevailing winds, then lay their eggs in the autumn.

Last autumn too was rainy in the northern Sahara, which meant that second crop of eggs also hatched well. Those offspring formed the gregarious clouds and began to assume plague proportions. The locusts would normally return south at this time of year but Mr Elliott acknowledges they could swarm north if winds push them that way.

"They could destroy the crops of huge areas of Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria, and if we don't get them under control they could swarm through India and Pakistan," Mr Elliott warned yesterday.