An Investigation of the 2003-4 Desert Locust Campaigns:
the Review Lukas Brader might have made.

Philip Symmons

Quartier Lasserre, 40700 Beyries, France. August 2006

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An Open Letter to Lukas Brader

Dear Lukas,
We go back a fair way. We have always got on well. I hoped for great things of your Review but I fear it has been an opportunity missed and I doubt there will be another.
Forgive me for stating the obvious but locust control is about finding and killing locusts. The organisational, logistical and administrative arrangements are means to that end, and should always be judged by whether they contribute or not. But we cannot judge that unless we know what control systems work against what type of population. That should surely have been the basis of your analysis. You should have worked from the bottom up; instead you worked from the top down and never got even as far as the country Unit in any detail. The control campaign is fundamental.
You say $400 million was probably spent during 2003 and 2004, and a staggering 13 million litres of pesticide applied. What impact did that have? Nothing obvious until the final campaigns in the Magreb. Then why was so much pesticide used? That is what I thought your Review was supposed to determine. I am sure that is what donors and others want to know. Those are fair questions but not ones that you ask. Nor with the three people responsible for three-quarters of the spraying on your team would an objective answer have been likely. But if the campaigns were wasteful and ineffective, administrative improvements by themselves will simply waste more pesticide more quickly in future.
I have many lesser criticisms; there are many assertions I would question and statements I would claim to be incorrect. But one recurrent defect that surprises me is your failure to think through the practical difficulties of many of your recommendations; surprising because in many cases you were well aware of those difficulties when the FAO Locust Group was part of your Division. A relatively minor example is your call for a roster of consultants. In 1988 and ‘89 you, Jerry, Rafik and I would meet to try to think of someone – anyone - to send on a mission. I told you then and I remember my exact words, “Margaret Thatcher’s market forces will not produce experts. If you want them you will have to make them.” A more important example is your call for “strengthening” the front line states. What does this mean? Which are the front line states? What is the Unit in such a state supposed to be able to do? What equipment should it have? What size should it be? Who is to pay?
You refused my offer to give you my thoughts on the events of 2003-4. That puzzled me. You did not have to accept my views – few people do. I have though attempted an analysis of the events of 2003 and 2004 since that is where reform must start. I hope you will not reject my effort unread.

My regards and best wishes

Phil

A personal statement
Why have I written this note? No one has asked me to and I have no responsibility for what is done other than as a citizen and taxpayer. We have spent at the very least $1 billion on Desert Locust control over the last 40 odd years but no one knows to what effect. I believe the impact has been for the most part sleight. That should be looked into but no one seems willing and I can think of few that are able.
I have worked on locusts for half a century; I can fairly claim to know more about their control than anyone living. I set up the Australian Plague Locust Commission which became both efficient and effective, and which was also a very happy outfit. The APLC area covered nearly 4 million sq km; about the same as Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali and Niger combined. Australia is a Big Country.
When a Desert Locust Unit much the same size as APLC but with much less experience, reckons to operate 50 aircraft where 12 was the absolute maximum I could deploy under proper control, I am sceptical. When an organisation similar in size to APLC sprays 3 million litres where I could manage no more than 150,000 litres, I wonder what they are spraying. The only proper estimate of a regional Desert Locust population made during 1955 at the height of the plague gave 1300sq km of swarm. That is a little more than our estimate of the 1984 plague in Australia but of the same order. The 2 million ha the Moroccans sprayed in late 2004 is nearly 10% of the half of Morocco where the swarms were. 20,000sq km of swarm is totally implausible. I do not doubt that they sprayed “2 million ha” but again what were they spraying? Where an outfit sprays mixed upsurge populations of the sort where I could not find a single decent target, I wonder what leads them to spray one place rather than another. I tried for years to devise a practicable way of outlining ULV band blocks for aerial spraying from the ground but without success. People claim to do with Desert Locust what I could not, but will not tell me how or produce any evidence that they succeed. Do they actually mark targets at all I wonder?
These are all legitimate questions to which I hoped you Lukas might find out the answers but you did not even ask the questions. I have asked these questions as they apply to the events of 2003 and 2004; that is what I think the donors wanted. I do not of course have definitive answers but I believe I have presented a case.
The Brader Review I believe cost in the region of half a million dollars. At least my Investigation has not cost any one anything -and it is an easier read.

Phil Symmons Aug 2006