Topic: Controlling Biting-Insect Populations
Country: Bolivia
Delegate Name: Adam Damato
School: Forest Hills Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Bolivia position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
Currently there is very little being done for controlling biting insects. Many of the diseases spread by biting insects cause thousands of deaths every year worldwide. Although vaccinations make a huge difference and will likely always be needed for traveling to countries such as mine, we would like the risk to be decreased past vaccinations. With primary biting insect being mosquitos we think that they should be eradicated.
Although this sounds impossible, and expensive, an interesting method that has been brought to our attention. This method includes genetically breeding a kind of mosquito that will breed regularly with other mosquitos. However, the offspring of the males produce females that are unable to lay eggs. Over time the regular mosquito females are replaced by the genetically bred variant. Then, when there are no longer regular mosquito females they can no longer breed and all of the remaining mosquitos die off. This could possibly be targeted but there would be concern of the new mosquitos spreading beyond the targeted area.
However, this would be a highly controversial decision. Many countries would be likely to vote against something like this and so would many environmental associations. Further research would have to be done in reference to the impact on the ecosystems with a large mosquito population. We do not want this to be overlooked, and we would appreciate it if people are prepared with their position on this topic when discussing biting insects. This could potentially save thousands of innocent lives every year around the world without costing a fortune.
