When I came to do my research for Tree Sparrow, I learned that in China, as part of Chairman Mao Zedong’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ initiative, which ran from 1958 to 1962, the Chinese people were ordered to eliminate rats, flies, mosquitos, and sparrows. The order came as the authorities decided that these ‘pests’ were damaging crops and the sparrows were eating too much grain. Over that period some one billion sparrows were killed, including the total Chinese population of tree sparrows. However, it seems the Chairman’s plan would backfire. The sparrows were a vital part of the Chinese ecosystem, as well as eating grain, sparrows ate locusts. Without the sparrows the locusts flourished. By 1960, locusts decimated the rice crops, resulting in one of the worst man-made famines ever experienced. The exact numbers of people who died during the famine is unknown, but it’s suggested that it was between twenty and forty million people. It’s certainly a reminder that tampering with nature will inevitably create problems for our whole ecosystem, mankind included.

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