Dakar — Locusts have been spotted in the Chemama region of south western Mauritania, causing panic among the local population, according to Yaghoub Ould Moussa, mayor of Keur Macene, a town on the Senegal border, but experts say the insects do not pose a threat to livelihoods.

"These insects are a¡boricole'or 'tree locusts', which pose no great harm to people's crops, unlike the 'pelerins' or 'desert locusts'", which can destroy people's livelihoods in a matter of hours, Keith Cressman, locust forecasting officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome told IRIN.

"The worst damage that tree locusts will cause there is to defoliate some of the region's acacia trees," he said.

Though tree locusts do not travel in big swarms like desert locusts do, the two types are often mistaken for one another, he added. Tree locusts are common in the Sahel region at this time of year.

A small swarm of desert locusts can eat as much food in a day as 2,500 people. In recent years, Mauritania has recorded regular locust outbreaks of desert locusts that destroy crops and pastures.

A major outbreak in 2004 stripped agricultural land throughout the West Africa region just before the harvest, leaving many farmers without a means of survival.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]