Stick Insects Menace

Taveuni Coconuts

Planters in Taveuni, one of Fiji's main copra-producing areas, are now reported to consider the stick insect a worse threat to their coconut palms than the rhinoceros beetle.

The planters say that while they have never seen a palm killed by the beetle, increasing numbers of palms are being killed by the voracious stick insect which strips palm fronds bare.

A significant feature of the spread of the stick insect is that it attacks large, well-run plantations where undergrowth is kept cut down. In small plantations, where this is not done, stick insects are rarely, if ever, reported seen.