Human Determination
Can Defeat Nature
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In 1958, Chinese leader Mao Zedong implemented an economic plan known as “The Great Leap Forward” as a prelude to his well-known “Cultural Revolution” which, over the course of a decade between 1966 and 1976, was intended to bring revolutionary China to a position of leadership. As part of the Maoist program, the “Four Plagues Campaign”, a sanitation program focused on the eradication of the pests responsible for the transmission of plague and other diseases, was established. To this end, Mao drew up a list of pests to be exterminated that included mosquitoes, flies, mice and sparrows.

The fact that sparrows (specifically the Eurasian tree sparrow variety) ate too much grain made them the number one enemy of the state, leading to the so-called “Great Sparrow Campaign” and “Kill a Sparrow Campaign”. In order to save the 2 kilograms of grain eaten on average by each bird, sparrow nests were systematically destroyed, their eggs broken and chicks killed.

To achieve their ultimate goal, urged on by the State, citizens banged pots and pans, banged drums and waved cloth and sticks, in order to disturb the adult sparrows so that they would not have a chance to rest, finally falling from the sky, fainting from exhaustion. On other occasions, citizens resorted to simply shooting the birds with carbines and slingshots, while some state companies, government agencies and schools held contests to see who could annihilate the greatest number of birds.

These massive attacks reduced the sparrow population to near extinction. While many infectious diseases were eradicated during the four campaigns (which involved the death of 1 billion sparrows, 1.5 billion mice, 100 million kilograms of flies and 11 million kilograms of mosquitoes), as early as April 1959, Mao’s serious miscalculation was confirmed: the sparrows not only ate seeds and grains, but also fed on a substantial number of insects harmful to crops. For this reason, the year after the campaign, a massive insect infestation emerged in the crop fields. With no birds to balance their expansion, they spread throughout the country – especially locusts – eating everything in their path.

Rice production was the hardest hit, although cereal cultivation also collapsed in most rural areas, leading to one of the country’s worst environmental and human disasters. Noting that crops were being decimated in a far worse way than if the sparrows had been allowed to live, and following the advice of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mao called for a halt to the “Great Sparrow Campaign”, replacing the birds with the bugs in his list of the “Four Pests”. However, the decision was taken too late and the domino effect towards destruction was already unstoppable.

The “Great Leap Forward” that was to lead to the progress of the new Chinese nation had accelerated the Great Famine, causing between 15 and 45 million deaths in the country, according to different sources. In the end, Mao had to import 250,000 sparrows from the Soviet Union to restore the necessary balance in the battered Chinese rural ecosystem.

Today, various governmental and international organizations educate Chinese children in the values of nature protection, highlighting the importance of arboreal birds in the natural balance. Many of these trainings with schoolchildren include making nest houses for sparrows to instill care and protection of these birds.