Desert Locust in Kenya VNR

Battles have been won in fighting the Desert Locust upsurge in East Africa, but the campaign is not over yet.

In recent months the Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO) has been working with its partners to control the current outbreak in East Africa, South-west Asia and Yemen while working to prevent new generations of locusts from causing further destruction to lives and livelihoods.

“I think the challenge in this part of the world is really to sustain the effort. We know that we will probably have to continue until the beginning until well into 2021, while, I think, scale up efforts for example in countries like Yemen which remains a source of desert locusts, ” Dominique Burgeon, FAO Director of Emergencies and Resilience said during a recent field trip to Kenya with a team accessing the latest desert locust situation.

FAO has developed a number of digital tools for countries to use in the field to collect data - one of them is called eLocust3 ( the third version of this tool). The innovative tool was designed to improve early warnings by enabling rapid detection of desert locust outbreaks and the green vegetation that is likely to become sites of locust infestations.

“ That ( data) is required to understand the current situation and then to plan and prioritize the control operations, “ said Keith Cressman, FAO Locust Forecasting Expert, who was part of the FAO team to the field trip in Kenya.

In the Horn of Africa, aerial control operations are now underway in northwest Kenya amid concern that immature swarms could lead to a new generation of breeding once short rains begin in October.
Climatic conditions also favour summer breeding in Ethiopia and Somalia, where more swarms are likely to develop. Surveillance and control operations must be maintained and affected communities also require livelihood support.

09 September 2020 - Murkebin Hill, Raraiti, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya
1. Various of desert locust swarms
2. FAO airplane spraying desert locust swarms

08 September 2020 - Wamba, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Dominique Burgeon, FAO Director of Emergencies and Resilience: “We need to sustain the effort. I think the challenge in this part of the world is really to sustain the effort. We know that we will probably have to continue until the beginning until well into 2021, while, I think, scale up efforts for example in countries like Yemen which remains a source of desert locusts”.

08 September 2020 - Lewa Airstrip, Isiolo County, Kenya
4. Various briefing at operational base
5. People standing in front of an airplane on tarmac

09 September 2020 - Lewa Airstrip, Isiolo County, Kenya
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Hamadi Boga, Ministry of Agriculture of Kenya: “We’ve been engaging with FAO and other partners just to contain the invasion. We have had one of the most serious invasions in 75 years, but through the process of managing it with partners, we have developed our own capacity to contain it.”

09 September 2020 - Murkebin Hill, Raraiti, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya
7. Aerial shot of affected area

09 September 2020 - Lewa Airstrip, Isiolo County, Kenya
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Hamadi Boga, Ministry of Agriculture of Kenya: “It’s been 9 months now since the beginning of the invasion and it’s been long. We had opted to finish the invasion maybe by July. But it seems to be going on and on and probably will be here for the next two or three months again”

09 September 2020 - Murkebin Hill, Raraiti, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya
9. Wide of desert locust swarms

09 September 2020 - Reteti Elephant Sanctuary - Namunyak Wildlife Community Conservancy, Wamba, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya

10. SOUNDBITE (Kiswahili) James Leparkeri, Samburu elder, community member in Reteti Elephant Sanctuary -Namunyak Wildlife Community Conservancy, “We think the Desert locust brought this illness, because our many of our goats have died after eating the leaves and their droppings.’’

09 September 2020 - Murkebin Hill, Raraiti, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya
11. Wide of desert locusts swarms

09 September 2020 - Reteti Elephant Sanctuary -Namunyak Wildlife Community Conservancy, Wamba, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya
12. SOUNDBITE (Kiswahili) James Leparkeri, Samburu elder, Reteti Elephant Sanctuary -Namunyak Wildlife Community Conservancy, “We have received relief from the (FAO) project that sent the pesticides, that sent the planes with the pesticides, using the planes to spray the desert locusts with pesticides. They have really helped because they have finished the desert locust swarms and chased them away.’’

09 September 2020 - Reteti Elephant Sanctuary -Namunyak Wildlife Community Conservancy, Wamba, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya
13. Various of FAO expert meeting affected communities

10 September 2020 - Lewa Conservancy, Isiolo County, Kenya
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Keith Cressman, FAO Locust Forecasting Expert, “This is the second generation of swarms, basically they became swarms starting in mid-June, they continued throughout July and a little bit of August. Now, in the middle of September, they are still immature, so they’re quite, let’s say, old immature adults. They have been immature for more than a month, six weeks, and this is due to the low temperatures. They stopped their old strategies of wanting to migrate Northwards and they changed it in to stay in Kenya to wait for that very important short rains to start that would help them to complete their maturation and then they will have the conditions to lay eggs”.

08 September 2020 - Barsaloi and Wamba, Samburu East Constituency, Samburu County, Kenya
15. Shot inside surveillance helicopter cabin
16. Close up on a mobile phone with eLocust3m on mobile, marking coordinates of sighted and measured swarm.
17. Aerial shot

10 September 2020 - Lewa Conservancy, Isiolo County, Kenya
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Keith Cressman, FAO Locust Forecasting Expert, “FAO has developed a number of digital tools for countries to use in the field to collect that very necessary information, that data, that is required to understand the current situation and then to plan and prioritize the control operations. So one of these tools is called eLocust, eLocust3, because this is the third version of this tool.”

8 September 2020 - Lewa Conservancy, Isiolo County, Kenya
19. Various of briefing at Earth ranger/51 Degrees operations room. Overview of GPS tracking of operations in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
20. Close of screen showing the control operation summary
21. Wide briefing

Please give on-screen credit to FAO