A famous locust organization of the past

In 2005 in Zinder (Niger), I accompanied a PhD student working on the Senegalese grasshopper. I had to visit its field stations located on a transect from Zinder in the South, not far from the border with Nigeria, to Agadez in the North desertic area. After a brief tour of the city where I have not gone long ago, I had lunch in a local "small restaurant" (photo on left) and made what I considered as an obligatory visit to the old base of OCLALAV, the Joint Locust and Bird Control Organization (Organisation commune de lutte antiacridienne et de lutte antiaviaire), which was still there, despite the years (photo on right). Empty shell, witness of a prestigious past.

OCLALAV was founded on 29 May 1965, in Fort-Lamy, by the amalgamation of OCLA (Joint Organisation for Locust Control) and OCLAV (Joint Organisation for Bird control). OCLALAV, for years, led the fight against the Desert Locust in the entire sub-Saharan region. The organization developed, under the leadership of people like Aristide Mallamaire, Jean Roy, Jean-Marie Castel... a preventive control strategy against this pest. The logo of the organization (photo below) was described in imaged words by the OCLALAV staff: "The locust grows the warthog to the sea and the grain-eating bird watches them go." On the logo, all the organization's member countries (in red) have in fact, more or less, the form of a warthog, and the Desert locust, placed on East Africa, seems to push this warthog to the Atlantic ocean. In the heady days of OCLALAV this logo adorned the doors of the Unimogs, Land Rover and other Power Wagon... all these vehicles traveled tirelessly desert areas south of the Sahara, from Mauritania to Chad, seeking for populations of this too famous eighth plague of Egypt: the Desert locust.

After the period of large locust invasions, and thanks to a better control of the situation, the danger seemed to go away. For affected countries, the priorities were different. OCLALAV was expensive, its effectiveness after being appreciated in times of invasions, seemed doubtful when the dust settles. The funds were scarce. This was the beginning of the downfall of the Organization and successive facelifts could do nothing. His disappearance was decided in 1986 (even if it persisted in some "cadaveric" form untill recently). Since then, a new international organization was established in 2002, thanks to the EMPRES program of FAO (Rome). This new organization – the CLCPRO (Commission for controlling the Desert Locust in the Western Region) now covers all of North and West Africa. Times are changing ... the locust threat remain!