Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Urban Insect Pests: Sustainable
Management Strategies
Partho Dhang*
Independent Consultant, Philippines
Introduction
humans. Human activity contributes greatly
to allowing the initiation of an infestation.
Also any structure constructed without
incorporating measures to prevent pests will
invariably face pest infestation. Once a pest
has invaded, the sight of the pest triggers
various types of negative behaviour, includ-
ing anger and disgust, and often the choice of
a toxic chemical spray is almost involuntary.
This human behaviour has made pest
control an easily tradable profession and
business. The degree of the trade is,
however, dependent on the nature of the
service the practitioner is offering and the
environment where the service is required.
An occasional trail of ants in the home may
be a mere nuisance but even a single ant in
a surgical ward can have grave consequences
(Imholte and Imholte-Tauscher, 1999).
Consequently, tolerance to pest infestations
varies and ideally pest control should be
considered at the design stage. Institutional
kitchens, healthcare facilities, and mission-
critical manufacturing facilities demand
detailed and careful design and planning to
exclude potential pests (Imholte and
Imholte-Tauscher, 1999) compared with a
home or a recreation centre.
When a building owner trades the
elimination of a pest for a sum of money to
a pest control practitioner, the owner is
aware that the cost he is paying has a share
Urban insects, like any other insects, are
resilient and successful organisms in the
natural world. A failure to understand their
bioecology has resulted in such insects
being considered as intruders in the urban
environment. Their encounters with
humans are mostly reported with alarm
and distress and their control procedures
are designed to be one-sided, often leading
to failure. Increasing reliance on chemicals
to manage urban insects has diverted the
subject away from the realms of natural
science. The modern pest control industry,
including topics, magazines, exhibitions
and conferences, has further diverted the
focus of practitioners towards products.
This has resulted in the bulk of the industry
evolving around products. Such products
have, in turn, stimulated marketing, and
made the subject of pest management
resemble any other commodity industry.
Trade in Pest Control
The world is blessed with many charming,
pleasurable, glamorous and enticing subjects
on which to ponder, and pest management is
not one of these (Geiger and Cox, 2012). Pest
control is, however, becoming a necessity for
