
Four Pests Campaign - wrsh07
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
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wrsh07
The most compelling part is the last paragraph describing the "Campaign":

> By April 1960, Chinese leaders realized that sparrows ate a large amount of
> insects, as well as grains.[7][8] Rather than being increased, rice yields
> after the campaign were substantially decreased.[9][8] Mao ordered the end
> of the campaign against sparrows, ... as [their] extermination ... upset the
> ecological balance... . By this time, however, it was too late. With no
> sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and
> compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap
> Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and
> pesticides.[9] Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great
> Chinese Famine, in which 20–45 million people died of starvation.[10][11]

