ABSTRACT
The search for food on the part of one organism, whether a micro-organism, insect or human, becomes for another either death, disability or a nasty disease. ‘Meat is murder’, some moralists proclaim – so is eating insects and carrots. This chapter focuses on two insects that have, historically, made a vital impact on the social life of Malawian people – the mosquito and the tsetse fly. In challenging the ‘war against the mosquito’, Joanne Lauck lauds the insect as a ‘hero of ecology’ and as the ‘guardian of the planet’s rich resources’, and emphasizes its positive aspects, ignoring completely the trials and tribulations suffered by humankind. Helge Kjekshus suggests that it was the rinderpest epidemic that initiated the ‘breakdown’ of the long-established ecological balance between humans and nature, and placed ‘nature again at the advantage’. Thus Warrington Yorke advocated driving back game from the neighbourhood of human habitations.
