BEIRUT, Nov 1 (AFP) - Swarms of red locusts have been sighted on the coast of Lebanon for the first time since World War I, but environmental experts on Monday played down any danger for the country's agriculture.
The swarms arrived in Jbail, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Beirut, state television said.
Neighbouring Cyprus was swarmed Monday by red locusts from North Africa that officials said had caused untold damage to crops.
Agriculture officials said the locusts, believed to be from North Africa, were first spotted in the Akamas nature reserve in northwest Cyprus but moved swiftly towards the southern coastal town of Limassol.
Cypriot farmers were told to go on alert and protect their fields by spraying pesticide and sealing off greenhouses. Monitored crop-spraying was underway in the worse-affected areas.
In Lebanon, professor Nasri Qaawar of the American University of Beirut, after a meeting with Agriculture Minister Elie Skaff, said the locusts had arrived too late in the season to pose a serious threat.
"Temperatures have cooled down, so they will not be able to multiply," he told reporters, calling for manual measures to fight the locusts rather than helicopter spraying which would damage local fauna.
Dumit Kamel, a member of an international association for the protection of the environment, said 95 percent of the locusts which landed in Lebanon had already been wiped out.
"They did not have the time to cause damage," he said, adding that pesticides were used before the insects had had a chance to recover from their trek across the Mediterranean.
But he said 11 huge red clouds of locusts had gathered over the Jbail region on Monday, and would probably head for the Gulf states rather than settle in the mountains of Lebanon.
Locusts ravaged Lebanon between 1914 and 1918 causing a famine which sparked a wave of emigration to North and South America.
11/01/2004 17:00 GMT - AFP