Have A Go Olympic Challenge 2024

HAVE A GO AT OLYMPIC SPORTS

FIND YOUR SPORT
Background image

White moths threaten to turn China's

 

White moths threaten to turn China's

Author image
AOC

Swarms of white moths are threatening to wreck China's plans to hold a "green Olympics", prompting the government to launch an extermination campaign...

Swarms of white moths are threatening to wreck China's plans to hold a "green Olympics", prompting the government to launch an extermination campaign.

The leaf-devouring insects are chomping up large amounts of vegetation in Beijing as well as its neighbouring municipalities and provinces, Tianjin, Hebei and Liaoning, the Xinhua news agency said.

Beijing is preparing to host China's first Olympic Games in 2008 and has set the goal of making the event an environmentally friendly one with lots of greenery.

But at least 50,000 trees in villages around the capital have been attacked by this season's first swarm of American white moths, the China Daily quoted State Forestry Administration officials as saying.

"Without timely control, the moth may turn the green Olympics into a brown one by eating all the leaves from Beijing's trees," warned Wu Jian, chief engineer of the administration's department of forestation.

A family of moths can eat the leaves of a tree in just a few days, Wu said.

The forestry administration announced yesterday that Beijing and neighbouring areas would jointly carry out a battle to wipe out the small pests, identified by state media as "a harmful forest migrant from North America".

Weapons to be used in the campaign include spraying by planes, insecticide lamps and the introduction of an anti-American white moth virus.

A tiny bee which is a natural enemy to the moth will also be enlisted in the fight.

While Beijing and its neighbours are the worst affected, the "alien moth" is threatening crops in a total of six provinces and municipalities in China, with 116 counties affected, Xinhua said.

A total of 300,000 hectares of plants in the four worst affected places have been harmed this season by the moths, which first entered China from its northeast borders in 1979.

AFP

Top Stories