Amor Nouira, a farmer in Tunisia's Chebika village, has lost hope of saving his prickly pear cacti, ravaged by the cochineal insect spreading across North Africa. Insect infestation ravages North African prickly pear The 50-year-old has seen his half-hectare of cactus crops wither as the invasive insect wreaked havoc on about a third of the country's cacti after an outbreak …
A species of prickly pear, that is an exotic, invasive species spreading over many parts of the arid scrub forests of the Sigur plateau in the Nilgiris could be declared as “minor forest produce” so that indigenous communities can harvest the plant, which is consumed in many parts of the world, a well-known conservationist has suggested. Ecologists state that the …
