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Technical Briefs and Manuals: English
This brief describes community-based tsetse fly control as a drought management strategy in tsetse fly invaded areas, which are settled by agro-pastoralists.
Livestock production is a more dependable livelihood option for rural communities in arid and semi-arid areas. Livestock have the ability to withstand effects of adverse climatic occurrences, especially droughts and, therefore provide both food and income security. Nevertheless, disease often constrain successful livestock production in drought stress.
The animals, which are under nutritional as well as physical stress (resulting from movement over long distances in search water and pasture), succumb easily to diseases in times of severe drought. Disease management must be an integral part of a drought management strategy in order to help vulnerable communities of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists become more resilient to the frequently recurring drought shocks. The level and nature of disease management interventions is influenced by local or rangeland factors such as tsetse flies.
Parasitic diseases that affect livestock are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas. One of the most serious parasitic diseases is trypanosomosis. This disease, which affects both human beings and livestock is transmitted by tsetse flies and covers approximately 10 million square kilometres in 38 African countries. This brief focuses on the control of the trypanosomosis in livestock.
With fewer resources to support livestock production, cost effective and sustainable methods of disease control must actively involve local communities. One of the methods of tsetse fly control is use of trapping technology. Although the trapping technology is the one described in this brief, other technology options of trypanosomosis and tsetse fly control are available.
The control targets either the vector (tsetse fly) that transmits the parasite (trypanosomosis) that causes the disease. The following methods of control are often used.
This Technical Brief focuses on the use of baited traps.
Trapping technology, which is often enhanced with attractant odours that attract and kill tsetse flies, is relatively simple and less polluting to the environment than insecticide application. Traps are relatively inexpensive and lend themselves to community participation. However, problems are experienced due to trap theft, vandalism, and damage by wildlife. To reduce theft of traps and vandalism requires at the very least a high degree of community education and awareness-raising. Such community awareness can be extended further to community participation, involvement of local people in control activities, and even community-based systems, such as management and financing.
There are various ways in which this can be done:
Within a relatively small or sparsely populated area the best way to inform the local people about the intended activities is to hold village meetings. Ideally, local leaders who know their area and the local language or dialect should do this.
A trap of the design to be used should be taken to the meetings, and set up for people to see. Several small meetings are always better than one big one, so that people feel free to ask questions. Meetings should be held at times to allow participation of most people from target community.
It is important to reach all sectors of the community, not only men, since it may be the women or children who have most contact with the traps when fetching water, firewood or herding cattle. Talks to local schools or women's groups may succeed better in this respect than general meetings.
Schools are always grateful for any educational materials, especially if it helps with teaching their normal syllabus. Trap-making competitions are always popular, as are models, posters, and workbooks. T-shirts, badges or baseball caps with pictures, logos or simple messages, are popular and help spread the message. Any means of involving people in maintaining or running the control can help. Where people are settled, advantage should be taken of existing groups to help maintain and protect the traps.
Meetings and talks can be very effective within a relatively closed community. If, however, other people are regularly passing through, they will not have attended the meetings and will not know what the traps are for. Here, posters can be helpful, although they have to be very carefully produced.
As far as possible the message should be put over using pictures; any text should be in both the local and national languages. Poster designs should be checked with local people before large numbers are produced. Posters should be produced in materials that will survive the weather and displayed at various meeting places including markets, shops, schools, churches and water sources.
For large-scale programmes, it may be necessary to use the mass media, especially the radio, to reach enough people. Even in rural areas many of the community will own a radio. Interviews in the field are more interesting than ones conducted in the studio.
Livestock owners are usually the most ready to participate. If they constitute the majority of the population, there is no problem, as they are probably become enthusiastic in order to gain personal financial benefits. Community participation is also much more successful if human populations are sedentary rather than migratory, and if they own their land and thus have the incentive of directly benefiting from the activities.
Community participation is sometimes viewed as a source of free or cheap labour. This is not a good approach. If local involvement is to be secured and sustained the benefits must be convincing to the participants and exceed the value of labour and other inputs. It is best if some people in the community are given paid employment in the control operations, in addition to any self-help component. This will not only provide employment, but will enable those employed to be trained in more depth on the approach. They can then spearhead community motivation, and act as a focus for these activities.
Effective involvement of local communities in tsetse trap technology adoption requires that they acquire appropriate skills such as trap-making, site selection for trap deployment, trap deployment, and maintenance. Target communities must also be supported to acquire additional skills such as resource mobilization and management, leadership, and organizational management to enable target communities sustain tsetse-trapping activities beyond external support.
The following steps should be followed when setting up the Ngu trap:
Use the white netting (Piece D) as follows:
Use the blue material (Piece A) as follows:
Use the black material (Piece B1) as follows:
Use the black material (Piece B2) as follows:
Selection of trap sites is usually determined by the target species of tsetse fly. Generally traps are sited in shaded places, preferably under tree shades. Animal tracks should be avoided to protect traps from damage.
Once in place, traps must be visited regularly to ensure that they are still upright, that cloth are not torn or faded and that they are overgrown with bushes. The attractants must be refilled if depleted and tsetse fly catches be emptied if cages are filled. Trap Maintenance requires skills and knowledge about materials that are regularly replaced, quality considerations, procurement systems, repairs or replacement skills and site clearing of bushes. Since trap maintenance is essential for effective tsetse fly trapping, it important that local people are equipped with appropriate skills, which can be acquired through training workshops or exchange visits. Trap monitoring and maintenance training covers the following topics:
Community representatives who can be targeted for training include trap monitors, supervisors and owners of land (trap managers) where traps are set.
Depending on the number of traps and the area covered, each monitor is responsible for 10 to 25 traps and each supervisor is responsible for 10 to 15 trap-monitors. Trap monitors visit each trap once a month to check and record information on tsetse catches, empty the traps of tsetse catches, carry out repairs of any damaged parts of the trap, replenish odour bait (attractants). They also clear surrounding bushes, check with trap-managers for other general information related to traps and compile data on each trap visited. This information is passed on to supervisors who report to the local community management committee for required action.
Trap maintenance is a very demanding task and trap monitors and supervisors may require some form of remuneration. This will vary from one community to another depending on available project finances and local agreement among beneficiaries of community-based tsetse initiatives. Some community initiatives provide provided trap monitors and supervisors with bicycles with mutually agreed terms on usage and maintenance. Other community-based tsetse control initiatives pay trap monitors and supervisors for their work.
Community-based tsetse control initiatives should establish regular work schedules, a monitoring and community feedback system, which provide tangible results for decision- making. Evidence of tangible results such as tsetse catches, reduced cases of sick livestock, reduced usage of drugs and transparent accounting and record keeping all help to generate and sustain full community participation and contribution towards tsetse fly control activities. Trap catches are a good indicator of the success of the project. Project managers should emphasize the importance of record keeping in community-based tsetse control initiatives. Annual livestock census is essential in tracking trends in livestock numbers. An increase in livestock numbers indicates reduced mortality rates and farmers' confidence in maintaining high numbers of livestock without fearing the risks of loss to trypanosomosis. Information about mortality rates is collected during annual livestock count and from government veterinary officers or community based animal health workers where possible. Records of community-based animal health workers or government/private veterinarians provide information about disease incidence. In addition, a sizeable herd (over 200 heads of cattle) of livestock should be identified and monitored over a period of time in order to determine infection rates through blood sampling and testing for trypanosomosis. Cases of trypanosomosis should be treated. Increasing community contribution of finances towards the tsetse control activities indicates local ownership, and commitment to sustaining tsetse control programmes.
• Manual on Community-based Tsetse Control Community-based Livestock Initiatives Programme - CLIP, 2004. ISBN 9966 9775 5 4 • TALC – Teaching-aids at Low Cost
Tsetse.org Natural Resource Institute - Programmes and information to assist in the planning and implementation of tsetse control operations.
NziTrap.com "Nzi" is Swahili for fly. The Nzi trap is a simple, safe and economical cloth trap for the capture of biting flies (tsetse flies, horse flies, deer flies, stable flies). It was developed at ICIPE in Kenya as an environment-friendly alternative to the use of insecticides, following many years of research on appropriate and sustainable technology for African farmers. It is a passive killing device that works through the attraction of flies to large blue and black objects. Flies simply die from exposure after entering into an innovative configuration of cloth and netting.
Arid Lands Information Network - ALIN P.O.Box 10098, 00100 G.P.O Nairobi Kenya AAYMCA Building, Ground Floor, Along State House Crescent Off State House Avenue Tel. +254 - 20 - 2731557 Fax: +254 - 20 - 2737813 Cell: +254 - 20 - 722 561006 E Mail: info@alin.or.ke Website: www.alin.or.ke
Community Animal Health Network Studio House, 4th Fl. Argwings Kodhek Road, Hurlingham P.O. Box 49502, 00100, Nairobi Tel: 254 (20) 2731664/2732203 Mobile: +254 (2) 72157653/ 734721208 Fax: +254 (20) 2732086 E-mail: info@cah-net.net Website: www.cah-net.net
Practical Action East Africa P.O. Box 39493 - 00623 Nairobi Kenya
Tel: +254 2 719313 Tel: +254 2 715299 Tel: +254 2 719413 Fax: +254 2 710083
eastafrica.infoserv@practicalaction.or.ke www.PracticalAction.org
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