Tsetse fly management
This Technical Brief focuses on the use of baited fly traps.
Practical Action
Community-based tsetse fly trapping technology
Trapping technology, which is often enhanced with attractant odours that attract and kill
tsetse flies, is relatively simple and less polluting to the environment than insecticide
application. Traps are relatively inexpensive and lend themselves to community participation.
However, problems are experienced due to trap theft, vandalism, and damage by wildlife. To
reduce theft of traps and vandalism requires at the very least a high degree of community
education and awareness-raising. Such community awareness can be extended further to
community participation, involvement of local people in control activities, and even
community-based systems, such as management and financing.
Community awareness raising
There are various ways in which this can be done:
Holding of meetings with local people
Within a relatively small or sparsely populated area the best way to inform the local people
about the intended activities is to hold village meetings. Ideally, local leaders who know their
area and the local language or dialect should do this.
A trap of the design to be used should be taken to the meetings, and set up for people to see.
Several small meetings are always better than one big one, so that people feel free to ask
questions. Meetings should be held at times to allow participation of most people from target
community.
Talks to schools, and women’s groups
It is important to reach all sectors of the community, not only men, since it may be the women
or children who have most contact with the traps when fetching water, firewood or herding
cattle. Talks to local schools or women’s groups may succeed better in this respect than
general meetings.
Schools are always grateful for any educational materials, especially if it helps with teaching
their normal syllabus. Trap-making competitions are always popular, as are models, posters,
and workbooks. T-shirts, badges or baseball caps with pictures, logos or simple messages, are
popular and help spread the message. Any means of involving people in maintaining or
running the control can help. Where people are settled, advantage should be taken of existing
groups to help maintain and protect the traps.
Production of posters
Meetings and talks can be very effective within a relatively closed community. If, however,
other people are regularly passing through, they will not have attended the meetings and will
not know what the traps are for. Here, posters can be helpful, although they have to be very
carefully produced.
As far as possible the message should be put over using pictures; any text should be in both
the local and national languages. Poster designs should be checked with local people before
large numbers are produced. Posters should be produced in materials that will survive the
weather and displayed at various meeting places including markets, shops, schools, churches
and water sources.
Use of the media
For large-scale programmes, it may be necessary to use the mass media, especially the radio,
to reach enough people. Even in rural areas many of the community will own a radio.
Interviews in the field are more interesting than ones conducted in the studio.
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