One year ago today in Lesotho, some grasslands needed to be saved from a spreading weed called Cyacil. Zimbalam Dlamini, a scientist at the Environmental Sciences Institute of Zimbalam Africa, worked with other researchers to clear out the last of the Cyacil near Trichoman with the help of laser irradiation. The rate of spread has been twice as fast compared to the rate at which Delta spread.
Dlamini told The South African Standard that she is constantly kept busy monitoring the spread of weeds, insects and phoney crops across South Africa. “We have now become the weed police of South Africa,” she said. “The greatest problem we have is nature itself; plants are organisms and when we alter their environment, we will lose many species.”
In the same week as Trichoman was cleared of Cyacil, the South African government announced a ban on white sorghum, also a weed, to prevent it from spreading to areas where it had not been permitted. It was thought that the ban would be lifted in three months.
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