cannibalism, and sparrows. This is a story  of how one man s drive to conquer nature,  

to exploit natural resources for rapid economic  development resulted in the deaths of an estimated  

45 million people and is considered by some to be  one of the world s worst ecological disasters.  

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we ll begin.  

Our story starts in 1958, China. The Chinese  Communist Party, or CCP, launched an initiative  

called The Great Leap Forward . This was an  economic and social plan designed to turn  

China from an agricultural-based society into a  communist one. The leader of the CCP was Chairman  

Mao Zedong. This was a man who saw nature as  an adversary. Nature was there to be conquered,  

its resources to be claimed and exploited.  Make the high mountain bow its head; Make  

the river yield its way he said. His slogan was  Ren Ding Sheng Tian: Man Must Conquer Nature .  

Chairman Mao Zedong wanted to increase grain  yields and bring industry to the countryside,  

increasing the country s iron and steel  production to surpass that of the UK,  

USA and the Soviet Union.  

With this in mind, one of the first initiatives  put into action as part of the Great Leap Forward  

was called the Four Pests Campaign . Partly  a measure of public hygiene, Mao wanted to  

eradicate mosquitoes, flies and rats due to their  roll in spreading malaria, Typhoid and the plague.  

The fourth pest was China s  population of Tree sparrows.  

Sparrows eat grains. It was suspected that each  sparrow would consume around 2kg around 4 pounds  

of grain each year. So, it was reasoned  that if the sparrows were eradicated,  

there would be more food go around. As part of  government propaganda, it was claimed that for  

every 1 million sparrows killed, there  would be extra food for 60,000 people.  

The initiative worked. Every citizen of China  was required to go out and kill sparrows.  

Mobs of people would destroy nests,  and smash eggs, and kill chicks.  

Birds would be shot. People would  gather, banging pots and pans and drums,  

or wave communist flags, all to scare  the birds and prevent them from landing,  

until they were too exhausted to fly  and would just drop out of the sky.  

It was treated like a war, with the brave  people fighting a battle against the pests.  

Thousands of sparrows were killed every day.  

There are no official reports of how many  sparrows were killed, but given that every  

one of China s 600 million people were required  to kill sparrows, it can be estimated that if  

they each just killed one sparrow, at least 600  million sparrows would have lost their lives.  

During 1958, China s population of Tree sparrows  was brought to the brink of extinction.  

So, how does this relate to the Great  Famine, and the deaths of millions of people?  

Well, we ll get to that in just a moment,  there s a little more context to set up first.  

Chairman Mao wanted to increase grain yield. To  do this he implemented many unproven agricultural  

processes such as sowing seed closer together in  the mistaken belief that seeds of the same type  

wouldn t compete with each other. A Deep ploughing  technique was introduced, incorrectly believing  

this would create stronger, larger roots.  Moderately fertile land was ignored, in favour  

of the most fertile land, believing that this  would lead to increases in per-acre productivity.  

These poor practices led to decreases in  production, rather than the expected increases.  

Local leaders who oversaw grain production were  scared to report genuine figures and so inflated  

their yield numbers. Sometimes these numbers were  inflated 10 times higher than actual production,  

in an effort to win praise from their superiors  and perhaps get to meet Mao himself as a reward.  

These inflated number however, meant  they were required to sell more grain  

than they could spare, leaving nothing  for the rural community that grew it.  

But remember, Mao also wanted to  increase Iron and steel production.  

To do this, many agricultural workers were moved  to work in industry. This meant that when harvest  

time arrived there was a shortage of workers  and many crops were left to rot in the fields.  

By this time, there was a major shortage of food,  

this wasn t helped by poor weather and  flooding that already threatened the harvest.  

And now, we come back to the sparrows. It turns out that sparrows don t just eat  

grains. Another major food source for them  was insects, particularly locusts. In 1959,  

with no natural predators left, swarms of locusts  descended on the fields and ate vast amounts of  

food intended for the people. Compared to the  relatively small amount of grain the sparrows ate,  

it became obvious that the killing of sparrows was  a terrible mistake. The sparrows, as it turns out,  

play a vital role in protecting the crops, rather  than the reverse that the people had been taught.  

This increase in locust and other insect  populations caused further ecological  

problems as people began to increase the  use and misuse of pesticides and poisons.  

The horrors of the Great Famine should not be  glossed over. Millions of people starved. People  

struggled to survive by eating bark stripped  from trees, clay, soil and coal. The droppings  

of Egrets, a fish-eating wading bird, were  collected, rinsed and steamed. But worst of all,  

there are many oral reports of cannibalism. People  would eat the dead, even digging up the recently  

buried. Many people were murdered for food. The estimated death toll of this time varies  

considerably, ranging from 15 to 55 million  people, but not all those died of starvation.  

It s estimated that around 2.5 million people  were beaten or tortured to death for speaking out  

against the government, or even just reporting the  true figures of grain yield, or refusing to hand  

over what little food they had left. People who  tried to flee the country or attempted to steal  

food were also killed. It s also estimated that  around one million people committed suicide.  

What makes these deaths worse, if that s  even possible, is that many of them could  

have been prevented. State owned granaries  held millions of tons of grain that could  

have fed the whole population. But these stores  were never released to the general population.  

The reasons behind the decision to  withhold these grain stores is unclear.  

Perhaps the government officials were  unaware of the extent of the crisis,  

or perhaps they were just  unwilling to face the truth.  

In an effort to save face, Chairman Mao was  still exporting grain to the Soviet Union,  

in part to pay off China s debt,  but also to say to the world look,  

my policies are working, we have lots of  grain, otherwise I wouldn t be selling it.  

The world wasn t always convinced and aid was  offered by several countries, including USA.  

But this aid was refused. Chinese officials were slow to react,  

but eventually things changed. Policies were  adapted and as for the sparrows, 250 thousand were  

imported from the Soviet Union to kick start China  s population and get the locusts under control.  

What can we learn from this? The intricacies of nature should  

not be underestimated. Ecosystems  can be a delicate thing, the removal  

of just one element can have catastrophic  consequences. Mess with nature at your peril.  

But most importantly, humankind s impact on  nature s delicate balance cannot be understated.  

Thank you for watching. This has been the first  in what I hope to become a regular feature,  

where I take a look at some of the  world s worst ecological disasters  

to have occurred, whether natural or man-made.  

And wow, what an introduction. If you know of any historical  

event that you d like to see covered, let  me know in the comment section. I hope to  

see you in the next video, until then,  I wish you well and I ll see you soon.