Why is the locust plague so serious in Ethiopia? I want answers in terms of location?

Located in the East African Plateau, the climate is a savanna climate, so the rainy season and dry season are obvious.

It is not the rainy season, but there is heavy precipitation and even flooding. This humid climate is easy for locusts to breed. The dry season is conducive to the growth of locusts, so locust disasters are widespread in the East African Plateau.

The worst locust plague in 25 years has ravaged East Africa

Ethiopians have not seen so many locusts in 25 years, and Kenya was hit by a locust plague 70 years ago. The locusts are swarming out of the desert, advancing eastward at a speed of 130 kilometers per day and destroying all oases, farms and pastures along the way.

Ethiopia’s largest agricultural area is currently facing the threat of locusts, while agricultural areas in Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Kenya have suffered inestimable losses. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has warned that locust plagues will cause a rare food crisis in recent years, and 19 million people will face life-threatening famine.

Global warming prompts locusts to "awaken"

Climate anomalies caused by global warming are now not just a climate problem but a survival problem: the forest fires in Brazil and Australia tell us Your home will be destroyed at any time. Even if you don't live in a forest area, the thick smoke will come around you with the atmospheric circulation, causing respiratory diseases in you, leaving you with no way to escape. This is nature's revenge on humans for destroying the environment, and there is definitely more than one way to retaliate.

High temperatures are currently causing the temperature of the global ocean to rise, destroying the original ocean current system and changing the climate. The fires in Australia this time are inextricably linked to the locust plague in East Africa. The water temperature on the East African coast of the Indian Ocean is getting higher and higher, and the water temperature difference between the west coast of Australia and East Africa is getting wider and wider. This makes Western Australia increasingly dry, while East Africa Rare rainfall occurs deep into desert areas.

Hot winds caused by Australia's drought have made the eastern region extremely dry, triggering forest fires that have attracted worldwide attention. Untimely heavy rains in the East African desert have caused vegetation to start growing. This may seem like a good thing, but in fact it is the opposite, because this abnormal rainfall is concentrated from October to December, which is when locust larvae break through the ground. Locusts had enough food to grow quickly in the desert, so there was a locust plague in January.

The current locust plague in East Africa is only the beginning of the disaster, and it will evolve into a worldwide disaster in the next step. Don’t forget that locusts have wings, which means swarms can travel across oceans. According to past experience, African locust swarms will move north into the Sahara region and lay eggs in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. And this is not the end of the locust swarm. Some will enter Iran and pass through the Caucasus into Russia, Ukraine and other European regions. The other part will continue to move eastward and enter Central Asia and the deserts between Pakistan and India to lay eggs.

Locust plague road map

What is worse is that the drought in Central Asia and the heavy rains raging along the Indian coast have become a replica of the Australia-East Africa model, where the newly born locusts will pass through Xinjiang and Tibet As a corridor, heading straight towards mainland China, other regions of Eurasia will face the same problem.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Bible make sense

This global pattern of locust plagues also explains why natural disasters, locust plagues, famines, wars and plagues occur together in history. Yes: Natural disasters are the starting point. Locust plagues are biological migration phenomena forced by natural disasters. Natural disasters and locust plagues together destroy agriculture, leading to severe reductions in food production and triggering famines. Hunger inspires people's desire to survive and triggers wars. War casualties and famines lead to The severe decline of human immunity leads to the occurrence of plague. This is a vicious cycle that will continue until the population is small enough and food production is high enough.

The locust plague cannot be solved by foodies. Restoring the ecology is the only way

There is always a "myth" of foodies circulating in our country, as if any species that invades China can be wiped out by foodies. But if you look at the history books, you will find that since Emperor Taizong Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty, he has called on the whole country to eat locusts, but there has never been a locust plague in history that was eaten and eliminated by humans.

Why can’t we eat locusts? The first reason is that there are too many locusts. There are an average of 80 million locusts in one square kilometer. Large-scale locust plagues often cover tens or even hundreds of square kilometers, which means billions or even tens of thousands of locusts. Trillions of locusts, how many people do you need to eat them all?

The second reason is that locusts migrate quickly. By the time you concentrate your efforts on catching and eating them, the locusts will have already flown away. In times of famine, people don’t have enough physical strength to catch locusts, so how can they eat them? Even if you eat it, you won't be able to replenish your calories, and it's not as fast as the locusts that eat vegetation. When the locusts are full and drink enough and fly away, the victims will not even be able to chew the bark and weeds and will have to wait to die.

The most direct and fastest way to deal with locust plagues in modern times is to use pesticides, use scientific and technological means to monitor the movements of locust swarms, and spray pesticides to kill them in desolate areas where humans and animals rarely visit. However, doing so can easily pollute the environment and may spread toxic chemicals through surface or underground waterways, causing poisoning of humans and animals. This is a method that should only be used as a last resort. If a stupid foodie still wants to eat at this time, he will probably be poisoned to death.

Today, the only way to safely and completely eliminate locusts is to restore the ecology and effectively manage the environment. The Rocky Mountain locust in the United States was once the number one threat to North American agriculture. In 1875, it was recorded that approximately 12.5 trillion locusts were concentrated in an area of ??510,000 square kilometers, with a total weight of approximately 27.5 million tons.

What is strange is that such a large number of Rocky Mountain locusts suddenly disappeared after entering the 20th century. Later, American scientists discovered the reason. The gold rush in the western United States attracted many immigrants. In order to feed the large population, the desolate Rocky Mountain valley areas were greened and reclaimed as farmland. The restoration of vegetation, the irrigation of water conservancy systems, and the plowing of soil for farming destroyed the locust eggs (the eggs must live in dry environments, which is why locusts mostly come from deserts and severely drought areas). In this way, the Americans inadvertently eliminated the locust plague. , making North America the only continent besides Antarctica without a native locust plague.