ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a scientific methodology for deciding when and how to manage insects while giving due consideration to sustaining delivery of ecosystem services. One of the earliest insecticides was pyrethrum, a natural product prepared from the powdered flower heads of Pyrethrum roseum, used at least as early as 1800 to control insects in Asian countries south of the Caucasus Mountains. Serious disruption of food webs and ecosystem processes was notably documented in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. The Integrated pest management concept developed during the 1960s when earlier concepts of using multiple control tactics were combined with consideration of damage thresholds and of multiple pests and non-pests in the environment. The life-threatening nature of some arthropod-borne diseases warrants a zero tolerance approach to vector control. Nevertheless, disease prevention or control must address interactions among disease reservoirs, insect vectors and other organisms.
